DOLE BUYOUT COMPLETED.Byline: Evan Pondel Staff Writer WESTLAKE VILLAGE - Dole Food Company Dole Food Company, Inc. is an American-based agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Westlake Village, California and is the leading grower and packer of such food items as bananas, pineapples (fresh and packaged), grapes, strawberries, and other fresh and frozen Inc. said Friday that David H. Murdock David Howard Murdock (1924-), with his net worth of 4.2 billion US Dollars, is the 204th richest person in the world. A high-school dropout, Murdock was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1943. has completed his $2.5 billion acquisition of the world's largest fruit and vegetable grower. Shareholders overwhelmingly approved the deal Wednesday, ending the pineapple grower's presence as a publicly traded company publicly traded company A company whose shares of common stock are held by the public and are available for purchase by investors. The shares of publicly traded firms are bought and sold on the organized exchanges or in the over-the-counter market. on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. . The transaction works out to $33.50 cents a share for the 76 percent of Dole stock that Murdock did not already own. ``As a privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. , Dole will be better positioned to achieve its growth and earnings potential, building on its leadership position,'' Murdock, Dole's 79-year-old chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. For a company that is notoriously quiet on Wall Street, analysts weren't surprised with Murdock's decision. ``The company failed to communicate effectively with investors and I think Murdock did not want to deal with the accountability of running a public company,'' Heather Jones Heather Jones (born October 8, 1970 in Edmonton, Alberta) is a former field hockey player from Canada, who represented her native country at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. There she ended up in seventh place with the Canadian National Women's Team. , analyst with BB&T Capital Markets in Richmond, Va., said earlier this week after the shareholder vote. The company did anticipate its first-quarter profit to decline as a result of lower vegetable prices. But Jones said the company had a ``good deal of earnings growth potential. Not only that, they are a very well-run and -managed company,'' she said. ``I would have loved to see the company remain public.'' The chief executive of Dole since 1985, Murdock has guided the Westlake Village-based company through shaky times. Murdock characterized the recent spate of accounting woes as ``a difficult period'' for publicly traded companies. But he said those problems did not influence his decision. |
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