PHOENIX — Citing a commitment to increasing shareholder value, the board of directors of Inventure Foods, Inc. on July 27 said the specialty food marketer and manufacturer is commencing a “strategic and financial review.”
The review will include a thorough evaluation of Inventure’s current operating plan and may result in the company continuing to pursue value-enhancing initiatives as a standalone company, capital structure optimization, a sale of the company, a sale of certain assets of the company or other business combination.
Inventure said it has established a committee of three independent directors to oversee the review, and the company has retained Rothschild as its financial adviser and DLA Piper LLP (US) as its legal adviser to assist in this process.
“The board of directors is committed to increasing shareholder value,” said David L. Meyers, chairman of Inventure. “We determined after careful consideration that this is an appropriate time to undertake a comprehensive strategic and financial review of the business. While the review is ongoing, the company will remain focused on delivering improved financial performance by continuing to execute our strategic initiatives.”
Inventure operates manufacturing facilities in Arizona, Indiana, Washington, Oregon and Georgia. The company is a marketer and manufacturer of specialty food brands in better-for-you and indulgent categories under a variety of company owned and licensed brand names, including Boulder Canyon Foods, Jamba, Seattle’s Best Coffee, Rader Farms, TGI Fridays, Nathan’s Famous, Vidalia Brands, Poore Brothers, Tato Skins, Willamette Valley Fruit Co., Fresh Frozen, Bob’s Texas Style and Sin In A Tin.
In addition to announcing the strategic and financial review, Inventure released its results for the second quarter of fiscal 2016. The company narrowed its loss in the second quarter ended June 25 to $278,000 from $1,951,000 in the same period a year ago. Net revenues in the second quarter increased 4% to $69,263,000 from $66,422,000.
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| Terry McDaniel, c.e.o. of Inventure |
“We remain focused on the operational and financial improvement of our business,” said Terry McDaniel, chief executive officer. “During the second quarter, we made progress on our key initiatives with another quarter of sequential improvement in gross margin, which contributed to a $1.1 million increase in EBITDA, as compared to the first quarter of 2016.”
Net revenues in the company’s Snack Products segment fell 13% in the second quarter to $27.5 million, primarily as a result of a reduction of products the company makes for third parties and decreased Boulder Canyon sales due to capacity constraints, a shortage of organic potatoes caused by weather, and slotting investments. Gross profit in the segment held steady year over year at $5.4 million, Inventure said, and as a percentage of net revenues increased 250 basis points to 19.7%, which compared with 17.2% in the prior year period.
In the Frozen Product segment net revenues increased 20% to $41.8 million, which compared with $34.9 million in the same period a year ago. Gross profit was $4.8 million, up from $2.6 million in the prior year period.
Overall, for the six months ended June 25 Inventure sustained a loss of $1,296,000, which compared with a loss of $16,586,000 in the same period a year ago. Net revenues for the six months totaled $139,118,000, down from $144,029,000.
