Dole Food CEO, ex-exec to pay damages
Print Edition
A Delaware judge ordered 92-year-old Dole Food CEO David Murdock and a former top lieutenant to pay US$148 million in damages for misleading directors and shareholders in a deal that took the company private in 2013.
The judge on Thursday said the billionaire businessman, along with former Dole President and Chief Operating Officer C. Michael Carter, breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty in structuring a US$1.2 billion cash buyout that left the fruit-and-vegetable giant in Murdock’s hands.
Vice Chancellor at Delaware Court of Chancery Travis Laster noted that a board committee was able to overcome most of the two men’s “machinations,” negotiating an increase in Murdock’s initial US$12 per share offer to a deal price of US$13.50, which received a narrow 50.9 percent approval from stockholders.
“But what the committee could not overcome, what the stockholder vote could not cleanse, and what even an arguably fair price does not immunize, is fraud,” wrote Laster, whose damage award represents an incremental value of US$2.74 per share.
Morgan Evans, a Dole spokeswoman, said the company had no comment on the ruling.
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