Saputo Inc.’s -Canadian dairy products

Saputo to buy Dean Foods Morningstar unit for $1.45 billion
“Standing together looking ahead” is Saputo Inc.’s motto. From a small cheese shop in Montreal, the company founded by Sicilian immigrant Giuseppe Saputo has mushroomed in 58 years into Canada’s largest milk processor, the second largest in North America and with branches in Argentina, Germany and the U.K.

*the company into the U.S in 1998 by taking over Stella Foods for $563 million U.S. and soon became known everywhere as the King of Mozzarella.

Here are some of the key points in Saputo’s history:
1954 — Giuseppe Saputo and family, new immigrants with cheesemaking in their blood, start their business in Montreal in humble quarters. It begins to grow immediately as people outside the Italian community take to Italian-style pizza topped with mozzarella.
1997 — Saputo, with son Lino Sr. firmly in control, tries to buy Canada’s Ault Food Inc., but is outbid by Italy’s Parmalat. It would have cost more than $350 million to win Ault, and Lino Sr. said that was more than Ault was worth. Lino takes Saputo public at $17 a share and denies a brush with the Mob.
1998 — Saputo buys Stella Foods Inc., the fifth-largest U.S. dairy processor with 12 plants, for $563 million. Lino Sr. says Saputo’s goal is to become a global cheesemaker.
1999 — Saputo completes the takeover of two U.S. plants of Avonmore Waterford Group and Bari Cheese Ltd. in Vancouver and pays $483 million for Jos Louis and Mae West snackmaker Culinar, saving it from a U.S. takeover, moving the company beyond cheese for the first time.
2000 — Saputo Inc. makes another big deal with the $407-million acquisition of Dairyworld Foods, with several plants in Western Canada, from the Agrifoods co-operative. That creates Canada’s largest dairy processor and North America’s fourth largest. Saputo’s annual revenue hits $3.4 billion.
2003 — Saputo expands into Latin America with the $51-million acquisition of Argentina’s third-biggest dairy processor Molinos de la Plata SA, which exports to several other Latin markets and to Europe. Lino Sr. speculates a U.S. acquisition may get top priority next.
2004 — Lino Saputo Sr. hands over the job as chief executive to his second son, Lino Jr., formerly president and COO of the company’s U.S. division. Saputo rumoured to be eyeing Latin American assets of Europe’s Parmalat.
2006 — Saputo enters German market by buying a distributor of mozzarella, ricotta and mascarpone. It also bought Biscuits Rondeau in Quebec, saying it would back troubled Culinar and bring it back to profitability after a big restructuring.
2007 — Saputo buys Land O’Lakes’s U.S. West Coast industrial cheese business for $216 million U.S. to secure a long-term fluid milk supply and also the U.K.’s Dansco Dairy Products, a maker of mozzarella, for $12 million to fit with its European expansion.
2008 — Saputo buys the Nielsen Dairy division of Weston Foods (Canada) for $465 million to back up its fluid milk activities in Ontario and also Alto Dairy Cooperative (Alta), a U.S. mozzarella producer for $160 million U.S.
2010 — Listeria contamination prompts the voluntary recall of cheese from one of Saputo’s biggest Montreal plants. It contained the problem by closing down one line of production. About 150,000 kilograms of cheese are affected.
2011 — Saputo buys Fairmony Cheese Holdings, parent of the U.S. DCI Cheese Co., one of the largest U.S. cheese marketers, for $270.5 million U.S. Lino Jr. says the real focus remains on building a global presence in cheese and dairy products.
2012 — Saputo bolsters its position as North America’s second-largest dairy company with a $1.45-billion deal to buy Morningstar Foods.

 - Saputo Inc (SAP.TO) will buy Dean Foods Co's (DF.N) Morningstar division for $1.45 billion to widen its product range and increase its U.S. presence, the Canadian dairy products maker said on Monday.
The sale of Morningstar, which makes coffee creamers, Friendship cottage cheese and other dairy products, will be a big step in the breakup of Dean, which is spinning off another business into WhiteWave Foods Co (WWAV.N).
The new Saputo will have about 12,000 employees and 57 manufacturing plants in five countries.
Evercore Partners advised Dean Foods, while a source familiar with the matter said Rothschild had advised Saputo.