138-year old grocery store staple files for bankruptcy
NEW YORK — Del Monte Foods, the 138-year-old company best known for its canned fruits and vegetables, has filed for bankruptcy and is looking for a buyer.
Late Thursday, the company announced it was voluntarily entering Chapter 11 and is going through a sale process for all of its assets. Among the company's product lines are a number of well-known kitchen staples, including College Inn broths and Contadina canned tomatoes, as well as its flagship Del Monte brand.
'After a thorough evaluation of all available options, we determined a court-supervised sale process is the most effective way to accelerate our turnaround and create a stronger and enduring Del Monte Foods,' said president and CEO Greg Longstreet, in a statement.
Del Monte said it secured US$912.5 million in new funding that will allow the company to remain afloat during the sale process and will keep the company operating as normal as it enters the peak canning season. The company listed liabilities estimated between $1 billion and $10 billion, according to court documents.
'With an improved capital structure, enhanced financial position and new ownership, we will be better positioned for long-term success,' added Longstreet.
He said that the company has 'faced challenges intensified by a dynamic macroeconomic environment,' notably consumers cutting back on their spending and a growing shift toward spending on private labels.
Del Monte 'says that consumer demand has declined causing it to incur increased costs related to surplus inventory that it has had to warehouse and attempt to move off shelves with increased promotional spending,' according to Sarah Foss, global head of legal and restructuring at Debtwire. 'Consumer preferences have shifted away from preservative-laden canned food in favor of healthier alternatives.'
Del Monte got its start in 1886 and built its famous cannery in San Francisco in 1907. The company claims that it operated the largest fruit and vegetable cannery in the world by 1909.
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
19 minutes ago
- CTV News
Criticism over provincial government's budget update
Regina Watch WATCH: The NDP is unhappy with the Saskatchewan Party's budget update, which shows a $250 million deficit. Wayne Mantyka has the details.
Globe and Mail
39 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Ford Vs GM: Which Auto Stock is the Better Investment After Revealing Q2 Sales?
With the major domestic automakers releasing their vehicle sales for the second quarter, Ford F and General Motors GM were notable standouts, outperforming Tesla TSLA. While Tesla saw its Q2 vehicle sales fall 13% due to weaker demand for its aging auto fleet and political backlash surrounding Elon Musk, Ford and GM gained ground in both traditional and electric vehicle segments. Considering such, it may be a worthy conversation to discuss which auto stock is the better buy between Ford and GM at the moment. Q2 & H1 Auto Sales Led by its Maverick and F-Series pickup trucks, Ford's Q2 vehicle sales spiked an industry-leading 14% year over year to 612,095 units sold. This boosted Ford's vehicle sales for the first half of the year (H1) to 1.113 million, a 6% increase from H1 2024. Notably, Q2 pickup sales came to 288,564 units with F-Series and Maverick sales spiking 11% and 26% respectively. As for GM, Q2 vehicle sales rose 7% to 746,588 units sold, driven by its Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick brands. Being GM's fastest growing brand so far this year, Buick saw a 29% uptick in H1 sales, with GM's total H1 vehicle sales up 11% to 1.4 million units. Ford & GM's EV Expansion Pinpointing EV expansion, GM gained ground on Tesla and stood out in particular. GM sold 46,280 EV units, spiking 111% from 21,930 in Q2 2024. Reaching an impressive milestone, Chevrolet became the best-selling EV brand during the quarter, led by the Blazer, Equinox, and Silverado models. Underlying Ford's broader EV expansion was growth in hybrids, with the company's 'Electrified' vehicle segment selling 82,886 units, a 6% increase from a year ago. However, pure EVs sold dropped over 30% while hybrid sales soared 23%. Stock Performance & Valuation Comparison Rising +18% in 2025, Ford stock has topped the benchmark S&P 500's return of +5% and the Zacks Automotive-Domestic Market's +2%. Meanwhile, GM is down 1% to lag the broader market, although Tesla has paled in comparison, with declines of more than 20%. Over the last three years, the performance is flipped with GM's gains of more than +60% being roughly on par with the benchmark and edging Tesla's +39%. During this period, Ford stock has been the laggard with gains of +4% but this has slightly edged the Automotive-Domestic Market. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research In terms of value, GM stock certainly checks the box at just 5X forward earnings. Still, Ford's 10X forward earnings multiple offers a slight discount to their industry average of 11X and is well below the S&P 500's 23X. Plus, Ford and GM stock trade at less than 1X forward sales. Ford & GM Dividend Comparison Leveling the playing field in terms of value, Ford stock currently has a very enticing annual dividend of 5.29%. That said, GM's yield is at a respectable 1.15%, especially considering most of the Zacks Automotive-Domestic stocks don't offer a payout, including Tesla. Bottom Line Posting standout Q2 sales among domestic automakers, Ford and General Motors stock both land a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) at the moment. To that point, these results have started to circumvent concerns that tariffs will have an overly dismal effect on their outlook, with GM and Ford starting to showcase long-term value to shareholders. Zacks' Research Chief Names "Stock Most Likely to Double" Our team of experts has just released the 5 stocks with the greatest probability of gaining +100% or more in the coming months. Of those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian highlights the one stock set to climb highest. This top pick is a little-known satellite-based communications firm. Space is projected to become a trillion dollar industry, and this company's customer base is growing fast. Analysts have forecasted a major revenue breakout in 2025. Of course, all our elite picks aren't winners but this one could far surpass earlier Zacks' Stocks Set to Double like Hims & Hers Health, which shot up +209%. Free: See Our Top Stock And 4 Runners Up Ford Motor Company (F): Free Stock Analysis Report General Motors Company (GM): Free Stock Analysis Report Tesla, Inc. (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
Kardium raises $340-million as B.C. heart device maker prepares for FDA approval, market entry
A Vancouver-area company that is poised to bring the most effective technology to market for treating a common heart problem has raised $340-million from investors. Kardium Inc., developer of a treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF), said the deal, announced Wednesday, was led by Janus Henderson Investors, sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, MM Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital, Eventide Asset Management and Eckuity Capital. Existing backers including T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. and Durable Capital Partners also participated, plus an unidentified strategic investor. Hedge fund MM is the sole Canadian player in the deal. AF is an irregular heartbeat disorder that affects more than 59 million people worldwide, and causes strokes and failures. Kardium, which has previously raised more than US$300-million, is one of several players bringing devices to market that treats AF with a method called pulsed field ablation. Kardium could be poised for rapid commercial success after receiving Class 3 medical device approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which chief executive officer Kevin Chaplin said in an interview he expects this year. Few Canadian companies have received that stringent designation, reserved for devices posing the highest potential health risk. Boston Scientific Corp. generated US$1-billion in sales from its PFA device in 2024, after winning FDA approval that year. Medtronic plc, an American-Irish company, expects similar sales for its PFA product. 'This is a huge market, and it's one of the fastest-growing areas in medtech,' Mr. Chaplin said. Kardium has generated better clinical results than both rivals. In April, it published results from a study of 183 patients showing 77.8 per cent were free of AF 12 months after being treated with its technology, with no device-related 'primary safety events.' Other developers of PFA devices reported between 0.7 per cent and 2.2 per cent adverse safety events, while their treatments kept 66.7 per cent to 73.3 per cent of patients AF-free for a year. A procedure using Kardium's technology also takes less time than with competing devices. Kardium 'knocked it out of the park on that data,' said Janus portfolio manager Aaron Schaechterle in an interview. 'We think it has the strongest product in what in our opinion will be a close to US$10-billion market. The company should be able to generate its rightful share' of the category. He added that Kardium's success will 'come down to execution. It's a small company with a single product going up against some of the biggest companies in cardiology and medical technology. That challenge requires a scrappy and entrepreneurial management team, and we believe the Kardium is up to the challenge.' The 500-person company is expanding its manufacturing, now done at its facilities in Burnaby, B.C., and plans to hire hundreds of people to make and sell the product. Kardium expects to sell its devices for US$8,000 to US$10,000 each. Kardium's technology combines several existing approaches that treat different aspects of AF into a single device designed to save time and improve results. B.C. biotech boom: Vancouver looks to join the global big leagues of modern medicine The key is a three-centimetre-diameter disco ball-like globe with 122 golden, individually controlled electrodes. The sphere is flattened, encased in a sheath, inserted in a patient's femoral vein and threaded into the heart's left atrium. It is then expanded to sphere form and maps the inside of the heart to pinpoint where erratic electrical signals originate before destroying the problem cells. The device was originally designed to burn the cells using radio frequencies. But in 2021, Kardium shifted to the emerging PFA approach, whereby its device sends rapid, high voltage pulses to rupture targeted cells, restoring the heart's normal rhythms without damaging adjacent cells like the older approach. Kardium, established in 2008, grew out of conversations between Dr. Sam Lichtenstein, former head of the University of B.C.'s cardiac surgery division, and Daniel Gelbart, former chief technology officer of B.C. tech pioneer Creo Inc., whose name is on dozens of Kardium patents. Dr. Lichtenstein was frustrated by limitations of existing tools to improve patient outcomes for heart conditions. He and Mr. Gelbart, now company advisers, brainstormed ideas to fix the problem. Creo's former CEO, Amos Michelson, joined as chair to turn their ideas into a business. Former Creo employee Doug Goertzen became Kardium's first CEO (he's now president and chief operating officer). Nine years after its founding, Kardium began human trials, which were successful. But it had to do a new trial after switching to the PFA approach. Mr. Chaplin said that once Kardium gets FDA approval, it will seek approval from health authorities in Canada and Europe and aim to go public in 2026. After a three-year drought for life sciences initial public offerings, the market has started opening up, with three IPOs by medical device companies on U.S. exchanges (CeriBell, Inc. Beta Bionics Inc. and Kestra Medical Technologies, Ltd.) since last fall. David Martin, an analyst with Toronto life sciences investment bank Bloom Burton, said Kardium could also be an acquisition target. 'This has the potential to be best-in-class, which isn't always the case, therefore the potential here is substantial,' he said in an interview.
