While the head of Goya Foods defended his controversial support for President Trump last week, he also quietly voided an agreement to sell part of the rice and bean empire, an agreement that would have cost him his job, according to The Post. .
Chief Executive Robert Unanue, who sparked a Goya boycott of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx / Queens) and other Latino leaders after she said on a visit to the White House on July 9 that “we are all Really Blessed “Having Trump as President: Successfully rejected a minority stake sale that would have valued the private canned food giant at more than $ 4 billion, inside sources said.
According to sources, the proposed deal with BDT Capital Partners, a purchasing firm that sees potential to expand the brand and eventually go public, would also have required Unanue to leave the helm within 18 months to make way for a new CEO, according to sources close to the situation.
Sources said Goya’s board of directors voted last Wednesday against the BDT deal, led by Byron Trott, a former Goldman Sachs banker known for his close relationship with legendary investor Warren Buffett. The vote came after Goya’s board had tentatively agreed to the deal a few weeks earlier, according to a source.
The moment has sparked speculation within Goya’s founding family about the intention behind Robert Unanue’s statement of support for Trump, which he reiterated during an interview on Fox News the day after his visit to the White House, calling for a boycott. ” repression of speech, “internal sources said.
Last year, Unanue donated $ 3,000 to the Republican National Committee and has personally supported conservatives in the past, and on Sunday he told The Post: “Months ago I was called to serve our country as a commissioner on the House Initiative White for Hispanic Prosperity “.
“I don’t think it was a coincidence,” said a source close to the family, whose patriarch Don Prudencio Unanue founded the Jersey City, NJ-based company in 1936 after immigrating from Spain. “Suddenly there will be a shareholder vote and here it is, saying these things about Trump.”
Goya and BDT spokesmen declined to comment on Sunday. Robert Unanue declined to comment on the BDT issue.
It is the second time in less than a year that Unuane’s job was saved after an agreement to sell the company was closed. As The Post first reported, Goya was in talks to sell a controlling stake to the Carlyle Group last fall in a deal that would also have replaced him as CEO. But Goya denied the sale talks at the time and changed his mind at the last minute, according to sources.
“It was supposed to be a control transaction … and the family apparently changed its position in the past few weeks,” Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein said in an interview Nov. 25 on Fox Business.
Unanue, which owns less than a 5 percent stake in Goya, saved his job last week by bowing to the demands of two key shareholders and adding two independent directors to the family-controlled board, the sources said. When Unanue agreed to add the independent directors, key shareholders changed their votes, and the BDT deal was scrapped, according to a source.
Goya’s board this week also voted to allow management to decide how to handle the boycotts, essentially giving Unanue its full backing, the source said.
After his visit to the White House, Trump posed in the Oval Office with a variety of Goya products on his desk. And last week, Ivanka Trump tweeted a photo of herself holding a can of Goya black beans and writing the company’s catchphrase “If it’s Goya, it has to be good,” along with the Spanish translation, “If it’s Goya. it has to be good. “
However, a source close to the founding family insisted that Goya itself does not take political views and is not aligned with Trump.
Currently, there are three factions of the Unanue family, each of which has three seats on the nine-member board, according to the source. Robert Unanue became CEO in 2004 when his family joined the Frank Unanue, Jr. family to oust lifelong CEO Joseph Unanue, who led the third family faction, sources said.
Since then, the Robert and Frank family factions have run the business in an sometimes shaky alliance, the source said.
Goya’s sales increased during the days after the White House meeting, but a source close to the family noted that the hashtags #BoycottGoya and #Goyaway have since gained momentum. Some members worry that the brand may suffer in the long term due to Trump’s tough stance on immigration and his infamous 2015 claim that Mexico was exporting “rapists” to the United States.
But Robert Unanue doesn’t seem to be backing down. In his interview with “Fox and Friends,” he said, “The President has removed many of the regulations and obstacles to prosperity. We don’t need obstacles on our way.”
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