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Monday, April 28, 2008 8:17 AM
By Emily Ford
Salisbury Post
KANNAPOLIS — Reported financial problems at Dole Food Co. Inc. won't affect the N.C. Research Campus, a top official said.
"I can't imagine anything derailing Mr. Murdock from completing his vision for the North Carolina Research Campus," said Lynne Scott Safrit, president of campus developer Castle & Cooke North Carolina. "That project is first and foremost for him."
David H. Murdock owns Dole Food, real estate giant Castle & Cooke and the N.C. Research Campus, a $1.5 billion biotechnology hub under construction in Kannapolis.
Dole, the world's largest producer of fresh fruit and vegetables and fresh-cut flowers, is in danger of default on $350 million in bonds that mature next year, according to an April 8 report by Bloomberg News.
Skyrocketing shipping costs and higher banana tariffs in Europe have eroded the company's ability to repay debt, Bloomberg said.
Safrit said she couldn't comment on the debt situation at Dole, which has been described this month in online business newsletters as "distressed" and "deteriorating," with some analysts downgrading Dole's bond rating.
Safrit did provide the Post with a statement from Dole spokesman Marty Ordman.
"The company is strengthening its cash flow and improving earnings," Ordman said. "Dole is in an aggressive mode of selling assets and paying down debt."
Ordman declined to answer questions from the Post, writing in an e-mail that the company has no comment on the situation.
According to Bloomberg, Dole is selling land in Hawaii and California to raise money to repay the debt.
Safrit said she's not convinced the two are related.
"Dole has thousands of acres of land that probably has not been used for a long time," she said. "They are probably just selling the land and it got wrapped up in that article about the bonds."
Dole agreed in February to sell 2,000 acres in Hawaii for about $39 million, Bloomberg reported. Dole owns 28,000 acres of pasture, forest and farmland in Oahu and relies on less than 3,000 acres of that land to farm pineapples and other crops, Bloomberg said.
Dole also may sell land in California and a flower unit, worth millions of dollars combined.
The asset sales might relieve pressure on Murdock to make an emergency cash infusion into Dole, which hasn't posted a profit for two years, Bloomberg reported.
Murdock is worth $4.7 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He is expected to spend more than $1 billion of his personal fortune developing the Research Campus.
Safrit said she couldn't comment on whether Murdock's massive investment in the Research Campus would prevent him from saving Dole from default if necessary. But she added that she can't imagine one of Murdock's companies defaulting on any bonds.
"That's not something that he does," she said.
Murdock does not rely on money he makes at Dole to fund the Research Campus, Safrit said.
"They're completely separate," she said.
Safrit pointed out that a leading financial analyst recently raised the ratings on some of Dole's debt.
Standard & Poor's Rating Services on April 17 raised the issue-level ratings on Dole's unsecured debt to B-, up from CCC+. Dole's secured debt continues to receive a B+ rating, two notches higher than a B-.
Standard & Poor's removed Dole's debt ratings from a watch list.
Dole's corporate credit rating remains B-, down from B. Alison Sullivan, Standard & Poor's associate director of corporate ratings, downgraded the corporate credit rating on March 21, telling Bloomberg News that Dole must reduce costs.
The high cost of shipping bananas is putting pressure on Dole and other producers. Banana tariffs in Europe also doubled in 2006.
Dole has joined competitor Chiquita and the U.S. government in opposing higher European Union tariffs on bananas imported from Latin America, where Dole grows most of its bananas bound for Europe.
While Dole is fighting to increase its 12 percent market share in Europe, the company is the market leader "in several key markets including North America and Japan," Dole spokesman Ordman said in his statement.
Dole should benefit from record high banana prices around the world.
If Dole defaults on an unsecured debt payment, Standard & Poor's indicates a 30 to 50 percent chance for recovery.
The chance for recovery on Dole's secured debt is much higher, 90 to 100 percent.
Murdock rescued Dole from bankruptcy in 1985 when he acquired it as part of his purchase of Castle & Cooke.
He split the two companies in 1995 and took Castle & Cooke private in 2000.
He took Dole private three years later, issuing $1.6 billion in new and refinanced bonds to buy out public shareholders.
Some of those bonds mature in 2009.
Murdock, 85, stepped down as chief executive officer of Dole in June 2007, replaced by David DeLorenzo.
Contact Emily Ford at eford@salisburypost.com.
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