Dole Food Beverage Unit Sold

Dole Food Co. said Thursday that it agreed to sell its Honduran beverage business to a unit of South African Breweries for $537 million to reduce debt.

Dole, a producer of fresh fruit, flowers and vegetables, said it sold its 97% interest in Cerveceria Hondurena beverage operations to SAB. Dole, of Westlake Village, has already sold its Pascual Hermanos vegetable business in Spain and other noncore businesses in Europe. It also has reduced the size of its banana and flower operations in Latin America and banana production in the Philippines.

Dole said it expects the sale to dilute 2002 earnings by about 22 cents a share. However, it said it expects the dilution to be mostly offset by cost savings from its restructuring.

Dole said the sale will produce a pretax gain of about $375 million.

Dole’s fiscal 2000 earnings came to $67.7 million, or $1.21 a share, on revenue of about $4.76 billion.

South African Breweries adds another emerging market after already opening operations in China, India, Uganda and Romania this year. Dole saw its net loss widen in the third quarter as a large restructuring charge weighed on results. Dole reported a net loss of $94.8 million, or $1.68 a share, compared with a net loss of $7.4 million, or 13 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell slightly, to $1.33 billion from $1.34 billion.

Excluding a charge of $104.8 million for asset write-downs and severance costs, the company said its earnings from operations came to $8.3 million, or 15 cents a share. Excluding items from year-earlier results, Dole said it had a loss from operations of $1.3 million, or 2 cents a share.

Shares of Dole closed up 66 cents to $23.93 on the New York Stock Exchange.