Prima Wawona liquidates assets after unsuccessful attempt to sell at auction

Following an October announcement that Prima Wawona, a stone fruit producer in Fresno, Calif., had filed for bankruptcy, The San Joaquin Valley Sun reports the company plans to liquidate its assets after not receiving a high enough value for its assets through auction.

The Valley Sun reports the assets include nearly 13,500 acres, which Prima Wawona’s realtor set at a value of $370 million. The company also received a $275 million credit bid in December but did not move forward, according to the report.

Prima Wawona became the largest stone fruit grower in the country following the acquisition of Gerawan Farming in 2019. Wawona also added the stone fruit breeding assets of Burchell Nursery in 2018.

“Over the last several years, we have focused on accelerating Wawona’s growth by building on the inherent strengths of our business and management team,” Brett Smittcamp, executive chairman of Wawona, said then in a news release about its acquisition of Gerawan. “Our acquisition last year of Burchell Nursery Inc. was one example, and now this historic merger with Gerawan takes it to yet another level."

Wawona’s investor, Paine Schwartz, said it looked forward to continued growth following the merger with Gerawan.

“We look forward to this new chapter for two companies that have been incredibly successful on their own, and we believe they can achieve even greater success through this merger,” Kevin Schwartz, CEO of Paine Schwartz, said in the release at the time of the merger.

The company’s bagged and bulk peaches were also the center of a salmonella outbreak in 2020. 

When the company announced its voluntary Chapter 11 filing, its CEO John Boken said in the news release that the company’s growth remained strong.

"We recently completed the 2023 harvest season, during which our team grew, packed and delivered more fruit across more acres than ever before,” he said in the release. “At the same time, the business has faced significant headwinds, including increased costs and weather-related impacts, that have combined to make our existing capital structure unsustainable. … The court-supervised process allows for the possibility that a qualified third-party buyer will emerge as the owner of the business as an alternative to our lenders.”