Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. Completes Acquisition of Tully's Brand and Wholesale Business - FOXBusiness.com

WATERBURY, Vt., Mar 30, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR) announced today that it has completed the acquisition of the Tully's Coffee(R: 28.37, 0, 0%) brand and wholesale coffee business from Tully's Coffee Corporation for the purchase price of $40.3 million.

Initially announced on September 15, 2008, the transaction was completed after receiving the required shareholders' vote and satisfaction of the required closing conditions, as set forth in the Asset Purchase Agreement previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company financed this purchase through its existing $225 million senior revolving credit facility.

"This acquisition hits at the intersection of our goals -- to bring an outstanding specialty coffee brand into our family of brands and to expand GMCR's West Coast presence," said Larry Blanford, President and Chief Executive Officer of GMCR. "The acquisition strengthens our leadership in specialty coffee and will support our plans to establish our proprietary Keurig Single-Cup Brewing system as the preferred way to enjoy coffee throughout North America."

Tully's retail locations will continue to operate under license and supply agreements with GMCR. The retail and international business will remain an independent company, operating under the name of TC Global, Inc., owned by its existing shareholders, and managed by its existing management team.

As previously disclosed, the Company anticipates that this transaction will be neutral to slightly accretive to its earnings per share for the first twelve months of its ownership, and accretive thereafter.

About Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (GMCR: 48, 0, 0%)

As a leader in the specialty coffee industry, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR: 48, 0, 0%) is recognized for its award-winning coffees, innovative brewing technology, and socially responsible business practices. GMCR's operations are managed through two business units. The Specialty Coffee business unit produces coffee, tea and hot cocoa from its family of brands, including Tully's Coffee(R: 28.37, 0, 0%), Green Mountain Coffee(R: 28.37, 0, 0%) and Newman's Own(R: 28.37, 0, 0%) Organics coffee. The Keurig business unit is a pioneer and leading manufacturer of gourmet single-cup brewing systems. K-Cup(R: 28.37, 0, 0%) portion packs for Keurig(R: 28.37, 0, 0%) Single-Cup Brewers are produced by a variety of licensed roasters, including Green Mountain Coffee and Tully's Coffee. GMCR supports local and global communities by offsetting 100% of its direct greenhouse gas emissions, investing in Fair Trade Certified(TM: 63.44, 0, 0%) coffee, and donating at least five percent of its pre-tax profits to social and environmental projects. Visit www.GreenMountainCoffee.com and www.Keurig.com for more information.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained herein are not based on historical fact and are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the applicable securities laws and regulations. Owing to the uncertainties inherent in forward-looking statements, actual results could differ materially. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the impact on sales and profitability of consumer sentiment in this difficult economic environment, the Company's success in efficiently expanding operations and capacity to meet growth, the Company's success in efficiently and effectively integrating Tully's wholesale operations and capacity into its Specialty Coffee business unit, the ability of our lenders to honor their commitments under our credit facility, competition and other business conditions in the coffee industry and food industry in general, fluctuations in availability and cost of high-quality green coffee, any other increases in costs including fuel, the unknown impact of management changes, Keurig's ability to continue to grow and build profits with its roaster partners in the office and at home markets, the impact of the loss of one or more major customers for Green Mountain Coffee or reduction in the volume of purchases by one or more major customers, delays in the timing of adding new locations with existing customers, Green Mountain Coffee's level of success in continuing to attract new customers, sales mix variances, weather and special or unusual events, as well as other risks described more fully in the Company's filings with the SEC. Forward-looking statements reflect management's analysis as of the date of this press release. The Company does not undertake to revise these statements to reflect subsequent developments, other than in its regular, quarterly earnings releases.

Equal Exchange Wins Three Awards

EQUAL EXCHANGE WINS THREE AWARDS FOR ITS SOCIAL & ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES 

WEST BRIDGEWATER, Massachusetts – March 26, 2009 - In the span of less than four weeks, Equal Exchange, the worker co-operative best known for introducing Fair Trade coffee to U.S. grocery stores, has been honored with three awards for its category-leading, socially and environmentally responsible practices, and unorthodox business model.

 

In early March, Equal Exchange won the Social Innovation Award
(small-to-medium size enterprise category, annual revenue $5 - $500 million) that is given out jointly by the Financial Times newspaper and JustMeans.com. The Social Innovation Awards showcase companies that are balancing the needs of shareholder and society—employees, customers and activists.  In the words of the Financial Times and JustMeans, “these are the companies and individuals that are taking action and are having an impact on shaping the new world of sustainable and socially responsible enterprise.” 

The awards were given out at the Financial Times’ “Responsible Business, Responsible Investing” conference in New York City on March 2. Equal Exchange was pleased to share the podium with another co-operative, REI, the outdoor equipment retailer and consumer co-op, who was a winner in the Large Enterprise category.
 

In mid-March Equal Exchange was excited to learn that its new eco-café, the co-operative’s first-ever full-size coffee shop, was named as a winner of the Green Business Award by the City of Boston. The café is located downtown, next to Boston’s North Station and TD Banknorth Garden, home of the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins. In keeping with Equal Exchange’s role as a leading importer and roaster of certified organic coffee, and purveyor of certified organic tea and chocolate, the café incorporates a number of environmentally responsible practices, ranging from the use of reclaimed wood in the café’s furniture to a comprehensive recycling and composting program for both staff and patrons. Besides a heavy emphasis on organic, Fair Trade, and locally sourced products, the café also took the unusual step of refusing to sell bottled water, out of recognition of its unnecessary contribution to global warming, litter, and land-fill waste.

Boston’s Green Business Awards will be given out April 16, at an 11 a.m. ceremony at the Children’s Museum in the Fort Point neighborhood.
 

And this week it was announced that Equal Exchange will receive the annual Aaron Feuerstein Spirituality and Business Award that is bestowed by the Symposium on Spirituality, Values, and Business. For the first time, the award is being given to an entire organization, instead of to an individual entrepreneur.

 

The award is granted to a business leader who embodies the values modeled by the life of Aaron Feuerstein. Mr. Feuerstein is a third generation leader of his family business, Malden Mills. When his mill burned down in a tragic fire in 1995, he not only continued to pay his employees, he also renewed his commitment to his community and his employees by rebuilding the mill at a time when most textile manufacturers were moving to other countries. Mr. Feuerstein is appropriately held up as a model for how modern entrepreneurs should lead.

 

The criteria for winning this award are:

• A leader who has managed a socially responsible business or has successfully promoted socially responsible business practices
  
• A person who models socially responsible values and principles and effectively integrates their core values into their business practices
  
• A leader who actively promotes the importance of all stakeholders to a business
  

 

Past winners of this award include Jeff Swartz, CEO of Timberland, and Amy Domini, a pioneer in the field of socially responsible investing.

In its announcement, the Symposium lauded the 86 member worker co-operative both for its democratic practices within the company and for having designed its progressive policies into the structure of the enterprise:

“From the beginning, Equal Exchange has been intentional about its mission, vision, and values and has worked to integrate these ideals throughout the company and to serve as a model for what is possible in the business world.” 

Rob Everts, Co-Executive Director of Equal Exchange, will receive the award on behalf of Equal Exchange and said this about the recent flurry of accolades:

“Right in the mission statement our worker-owners drafted 13 years ago, it says that we seek to ‘demonstrate, through our success, the contribution of worker co-operatives and Fair Trade to a more equitable, democratic and sustainable world’ and these awards suggest that the world is taking notice and that in the current financial climate, practices deemed idealistic just a few short years ago are, in fact, critical to a truly sustainable economy.”

The award will be presented Friday, March 27, at the eleventh annual Symposium on Spirituality, Values and Business that will be held at Babson College’s Glavin Family Chapel in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

 

About Equal Exchange:

A pioneer and U.S. market leader in Fair Trade since 1986, Equal Exchange is a full service provider of high quality, organic coffee, tea, chocolate and healthy snacks to retailers and food service establishments. Major customers include hundreds of consumer food co-operatives nationwide, supermarkets such as Shaw’s, Whole Foods, and Hannaford, as well as Ten Thousand Villages, restaurants, and thousands of places of worship and schools nationwide. 100% of Equal Exchange products are fairly traded, benefiting more than 40 small farmer co-operatives in 23 countries around the world.  In keeping with its commitment to economic democracy, Equal Exchange is a worker co-operative, owned and democratically governed by its 86 worker-owners in Massachusetts, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, and California.

Contact:
Rodney North
Equal Exchange
774-776-7398

rodney@equalexchange.coop

www.EqualExchange.Coop