Diamond Foods, Inc.

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Diamond Foods, Inc.,, also known as Diamond of California (NASDAQ: DMND), was an agricultural marketing cooperative and is since July 2005 a public company, specializing in marketing nuts, particularly walnuts. It was founded in 1912 and is headquartered in Stockton, California. It is the leading United States exporter of walnuts.

Its brands include Emerald of California, which launched in the fall of 2004 with a series of surreal television ads, specializes in snack nuts and designed to compete with the long-established Planters brand of nuts. Other products include pine nuts, pecans, peanuts, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, cashews, Brazil nuts and almonds.

[edit] Becoming a public company

After the 1980's, Diamond's sales declined as retailers sought out suppliers who could provide a greater variety of nut products. Diamond responded by launching a new line of products, including pecans, almonds and snacks like mixed nuts and butter toffee. The product expansion was expensive, and Diamond raised money in part by keeping some of the proceeds normally paid to growers, much like an interest-free loan. The company afterward avoided retaining profits, but as a result, its ability to raise cash for future growth initiatives was limited. [1]

In order to have the capital needed for brand growth and expansion, it was decided to abolish the cooperative structure and file an IPO.

After some initial resistance from some growers (who recognized the need to stay competitive in the marketplace but preferred the existing system), by the spring and summer of 2005 the members of the agricultural cooperative Diamond Walnut Growers, Inc., approved (with 80 per cent of the vote) a restructuring into a publicly traded company. (It was taken over by its wholly owned subsidiary which was already named Diamond Foods.) Co-op membership was exchanged for shares of stock in the new firm. [2] At that time the firm converted from a California agricultural cooperative association to a Delaware corporation, although corporate headquarters remain in its longtime home of Stockton.