The new owners of Borden Dairy agreed to pay $685,000 to Mexico’s Grupo Lala for the rights to continue using Elsie the Cow on products, according to several media reports.
A bankruptcy court in Delaware on July 16 approved the agreement between Capitol Peak Partners and KKR & Co. on the one hand and Grupo Lala, which owned most of Borden before its descent into bankruptcy.
Even though Elsie has been Borden’s mascot since 1936, the previous incarnation of the American company licensed the image from an affiliate of Grupo Lala. While there was disagreement among the parties on whether the mascot was included in the sale, the $685,000 fee apparently seemed the most expedient way to keep the milk flowing, rather than fighting it out in court.
It also clears another hurdle to the conclusion of the $340 million sale to Capitol Peak, an investment firm founded by the former head of similarly bankrupt Dean Foods, and KKR, which owned Borden in the 1990s.
