Two vie for Sunland in Portales

Even though there is uncertainty of who will become Sunland Inc.’s new owner, both potential buyers said they have plans to reopen the plant and operate in Portales. The question of ownership of the defunct peanut processing plant came into play Monday when Sunland Inc. trustee Clarke Coll asked U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge David Thuma to let him consider a last-minute $25 million offer from Golden Boy Foods of Canada over the high bid of $20 million offered by Hampton Farms during closed bidding Thursday. Coll said the substantially higher offer could mean the difference between whether or not unsecured creditors will get any payments from the liquidation of Sunland Inc., which filed for bankruptcy last year following the 2012 salmonella outbreak that prompted a nationwide recall and shuttered its operations for eight months. North Carolina-based Hampton Farms tendered the high bid. However, just before the auction results were to be finalized during a court hearing Friday, Coll received a call from Paul Henderson of Canada’s Golden Boy Foods with a $25 million cash offer for the plant. “Initially, I thought it was a joke,” Coll told the court. But the company has since wired the cash to a title company and is prepared to close Friday. Thuma said he hoped to decide this morning whether to let Coll consider the new offer...more