Heinz Acquires Richardson Foods

HJ Heinz Company of Canada Ltd., a subsidiary of HJ Heinz Co. acquired the Canadian assets of Unifine Richardson BV, a subsidiary of the Royal Cosun Group of Companies. The deal closed on February 3, 2004. The assets comprised the Richardson Foods business of Unifine Richardson BV. Richardson Foods is based in St. Mary’s, Ontario. The value of the deal is undisclosed.

Heinz was represented by in-house counsel Loretta Lobes; and assisted by Stikeman Elliott LLP in Toronto, with a team that included David McCarthy and D’Arcy Nordick (corporate), Dana Porter (real estate), Gary Nachshen (pensions), Larry Cobb (environmental), Julie Thibault (labour and employment) and Susan Hutton (competition); and by Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP in Toronto, with a team that included Joel Shafer and Jeff Trossman (tax) and Brian Gray (IP).

Royal Cosun was represented by in-house counsel Tom Overboom; and assisted by Goodman and Carr LLP, with a team that included Jeff Fineberg, Ruby Wong and Brent Clooney (corporate) and Jules Mikelberg (real estate); by Juli Abouchar (environmental) and Donna Shier of Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers in Toronto; and by Jonathan Colombo (IP) of Bereskin & Parr in Toronto.