Jim Hall is the CEO of Landec Corp., which will soon rename itself as Lifecore Biomedical, the subsidiary that Hall previously led. [Photo courtesy of Landec Corp.
Lifecore Biomedical parent company Landec Corp. (Nasdaq:LNDC) plans to take the subsidiary’s name, leadership and headquarters as its own and sell off food businesses to focus on contract development and manufacturing.
Santa Maria, California-based Landec said it will rename itself as Lifecore Biomedical “in the near future” and change its Nasdaq ticker to LFCR.
Landec named Jim Hall as its new CEO effective yesterday. Hall served as president of Chaska, Minnesota-based Lifecor since 2017. Landec CFO John Morberg will remain with the company.
Lifecore manufactures sodium hyaluronate for medical applications and offers contract development and manufacturing organization services for injectable pharmaceuticals and medical devices, primarily filled and finished syringes and vials.
Former Landec CEO Dr. Albert Bolles will serve as president of Landec subsidiary Curation Foods as the parent company sells off the remainder of the food business.
Landec sold its Curation Foods’ fresh packaged salads, green beans and fresh cut vegetables business to Taylor Foods in December 2021. Landec is now exploring opportunities to sell Curation Foods’ Yucatan Foods and O Olive Oil & Vinegar businesses by the end of fiscal 2023.
Four members of Landec’s board — Deborah Carosella, Tonia Pankopf, Andrew Powell and Catherine Sohn — will leave the board at the annual meeting in October. The new Lifecore entity will then have a seven-member board focused on life sciences.
Lifecore was publicly traded until private equity firm Warburg Pincus bought it for $239 million in 2008. Landec bought Lifecore two years later.
“We have supported the Lifecore business since we took ownership of the company, investing in new capacity and capabilities,” Landec Chair Craig Barbarosh said in a news release.” As we look ahead, we expect Lifecore to continue to build upon its strong development pipeline, further expand its breadth of services and become the leading CDMO focused on complex projects. We are extremely excited about the path ahead for this exceptional business.”
She said Lifecore has posted compound revenue growth of 15% and EBITDA growth of 25% since fiscal 2015.
“Lifecore is aligned with large and growing addressable markets with attractive underlying tailwinds and we have a long history of success, proven by our long-term customer relationships and low turnover,” Hall said yesterday as he announced Landec’s quarterly results for the first time as CEO. “Looking ahead to fiscal 2023, our growth continues to be driven by our robust development pipeline and we remain focused on driving towards a multi-year acceleration of annual revenue growth into the mid- to high-teens based upon current pipeline characteristics and favorable industry tailwinds in the coming years.”
Lifecore revenue grew 11.5% to $109.3 million in fiscal 2022 (ended May 29). The company projected revenue fiscal 2023 revenue of $122 million to $126 million, which would be 12% to 15% more than this year.