With the sale of Borden Dairy finalized today (June 26), Tony Sarsam will step down as CEO to be replaced by Gregg Engles, head of the investment fund acquiring the majority of bankrupt Borden.
Sarsam took over at the struggling dairy in early 2018 and steered it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on Jan. 5, two months after Dean Foods, the only milk processor bigger than Borden, did likewise. He will depart sometime in July.
Borden, with a history dating back to 1857, was purchased by Capitol Peak Partners and affiliates in a deal valued at approximately $340 million. KKR, an existing lender to Borden, continues as a minority investor. But former controlling and majority equity holders, ACON Investments and Grupo Lala, respectively, will no longer be involved.
Engles is managing partner of Capitol Peak Partners. He’s a former stock broker who in the 1990s started buying up small dairies, ultimately merging his Suiza Dairy holdings into Dean Foods and replacing the Dean family. Engles became chairman and CEO of Dean, then took those same titles at WhiteWave Foods, which Dean spun off in 2012. He’s been kind of out of work since selling WhiteWave to Danone in 2016 for $12.5 billion.
