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Eleanor McCain, shown in a promotional photo for her 2017 album release, has an 8.7-per-cent position in family holding company McCain Foods Group Inc. worth an estimated $1-billion.Galit Rodan/The Canadian Press
Heiress Eleanor McCain is ramping up her campaign for a lucrative exit from privately owned McCain Foods Ltd. by calling a family meeting to discuss an initial public offering from the world’s largest frozen French fry maker.
On Monday, Ms. McCain e-mailed a letter to approximately 55 second-, third- and fourth-generation descendants of McCain Foods’ founders, inviting them to attend a virtual meeting this Friday to review options for future ownership of a global company worth more than $20-billion.
According to the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The Globe and Mail, family members can join the virtual meeting anonymously.
McCain Foods is at an “existential cross roads,” Ms. McCain said in her letter, with the family holding company resisting attempts by numerous heirs to cash in on their inheritances at market valuations. She said a number of her relatives share her views on an IPO and “we owe it to ourselves to stress test alternatives.”
Ms. McCain declined to comment on her letter through her spokesperson, Wojtek Dabrowski. A spokesperson for McCain Foods could not be reached for comment.
Ms. McCain is the daughter of co-founder Wallace McCain and is a Toronto-based musician. Her 8.7-per-cent position in family holding company McCain Foods Group Inc. (MFGI) is estimated to be worth $1-billion. MFGI owns McCain Foods, the operating company, using a structure that is common at family-controlled companies in Europe.
Over the past 18 months, Ms. McCain has been fighting to sell her MFGI stake at what she sees at its market value. In March, she sued MFGI in New Brunswick’s Court of King’s Bench to ensure she gets fair value, after MFGI effectively blocked her attempt to sell her holding to an outside investor.
In her legal claim, Ms. McCain said her family’s company “is only prepared to purchase Eleanor’s shares at a discounted price that is hundreds of millions of dollars below MFGI’s own internal estimates.”
McCain’s ownership flaws were identified decades ago – now a second generation is feuding all over again
Friday’s online briefing, which Ms. McCain is allowing her relatives to join without revealing their identity to encourage attendance, will discuss “alternative paths” for the company’s ownership supported by several family members, the letter said.
Ms. McCain said her adviser will present concepts such as an IPO that address the issue of liquidity while preserving family control of McCain Foods. She said MFGI’s restrictions on the sale of shares in the company deny the rights that McCain family members were promised by the founders.
Ms. McCain hired investment banker Scott Moses, head of the grocery, pharmacy and restaurant team at New York-based Solomon Partners, to speak at the family meeting on Friday. Mr. Moses has advised numerous family-owned food companies on public market transactions, including IPOs.
The MGFI board is led by Ms. McCain’s cousin Andrew McCain. In her legal filing last March, Ms. McCain said company founders structured the holding company to allow their offspring to sell their stakes to outsiders.
In Monday’s letter to her relatives, Ms. McCain said the MFGI board “pursues a singular focus on remaining private while overlooking the needs of an ever-growing shareholder base that does not share that view.”
Wallace and Harrison McCain, sons of a potato farmer, opened their first frozen fry factory in Florenceville, N.B., in 1957. They built a global business, then feuded over leadership in the early 1990s prior to their deaths in 2011 and 2004, respectively.
Ms. McCain’s court filings earlier this year revealed that in 1995, as part of a court hearing to resolve the feud between the founders, New Brunswick Justice Ronald Stevenson said McCain Foods “should seriously consider a public equity issue” to avoid potential family disputes.
Over the past three decades, McCain Foods hired a series of outside chief executive officers who scaled up the business internationally. Current CEO Max Koeune joined from French food giant Danone SA. He has more than doubled sales since taking the top job in 2017.
McCain Foods is the world’s largest producer of frozen potatoes and a significant contributor to New Brunswick’s economy, with 22,000 employees in 160 countries and $16-billion in annual sales. The company is more than twice the size of New York Stock Exchange-listed rival Lamb Weston Holdings Inc., which has a US$6.1-billion market capitalization.