SunOpta Completes Acquisition of Sunrise Growers

13 Oct 2015 --- SunOpta Inc. has completed the strategic acquisition of Sunrise Holdings (Delaware), Inc. from an investor group led by affiliates of Paine & Partners LLC, for $444 million plus certain purchase price adjustments.

Sunrise Growers is the leading processor of conventional and organic individually quick frozen ("IQF") fruit in the United States. Sunrise Growers offers an assortment of frozen fruit products in a variety of packaging formats serving retail private label and foodservice customers. Sunrise maintains a global sourcing network providing year-round access to critical fruit supply, and operates a highly scalable processing footprint including facilities in California, Kansas and Mexico, with approximately 300 full-time and 2,000 seasonal employees. The acquisition complements SunOpta's existing frozen fruit and fruit ingredient processing operations, utilizes its global sourcing network and is expected to create significant operational efficiencies as the strengths of both organizations are leveraged.

"We believe the acquisition of Sunrise Growers is transformative for our company as it provides us with the leading market position in conventional non-GMO and organic IQF fruit in the United States, and is expected to enhance our product mix, increase our revenue growth and margin profile, provide multiple synergy opportunities and leverage our strategic focus on integrated consumer products," said SunOpta's President and Chief Executive Officer, Rik Jacobs. "The addition of Sunrise Growers further expands our integrated consumer products segment which is focused on three key platforms: healthy fruit, healthy beverages and healthy snacks. We are excited to have the team from Sunrise join SunOpta and they will take a leadership role in the integration and development of our healthy fruit platform."

SunOpta financed the acquisition through proceeds from an offering of $100 million of common shares which were issued on September 30, 2015, a $330 million second lien loan which closed contemporaneously with the closing of the acquisition of Sunrise Growers, plus borrowings under its existing North American credit facilities.