Dole Will Sell Juice Brands to Seagram : Consumer products: Firm is separating food and real estate divisions. Analysts praise $285-million deal.

Dole Food Co., taking a step toward the long-term goal of separating its food and real estate businesses and shedding poorly performing units, said Thursday that it will sell its worldwide juice business to Seagram Co. for $285 million.

David H. Murdock, chairman of Westlake Village-based Dole, said the company was “reviewing all aspects of its businesses with the intent of the sale or distribution of certain assets. . . .”

He did not elaborate. Dole spokesman Thomas Pernice said Murdock’s goal “is always to increase shareholder value in the company.”

Seagram said the acquisition will strengthen its Tropicana fruit juice business. The deal includes the Dole, Juice Bowl and Looza trademarks in the United States as well as Fruvita, Dole, Juice Bowl and Looza brands in Europe and Dole brand fruit juices in Asia.

Analysts generally praised the idea as a good one for both Dole and Seagram, the Canadian bottler of spirits and other beverages. For Dole, the transaction “is positive, given an apparent management effort to prune the portfolio of less desirable operations and reduce debt,” said analyst Michael J. Branca at NatWest Securities Corp. in New York.

Branca said other Dole units that might be considered for sale are its domestic vegetable and Japanese operations, which he said have produced “below-par returns.”

The acquisition also makes sense for Montreal-based Seagram, analysts said. The company has shown interest in diversifying through its 15% stake in Time Warner Inc., but it is also expanding its core beverage operations and has recently worked to improve worldwide sales of Tropicana Products, currently $1.5 billion annually.

“I think there’s no question the reason they bought it is for additional European exposure,” said Steven Holt, analyst at Wood Gundy Ltd. in Toronto. The Dole juice acquisition “shows they’re serious about taking Tropicana worldwide.”

The price Seagram is paying for the Dole unit, which generates about $320 million a year in sales, is “not overly expensive,” Holt said. He said the one negative aspect for Seagram is that it increases Tropicana’s exposure to the blended juices business in North America, a highly competitive and crowded one that has been a drag on Tropicana’s earnings.

The Dole brand name would be licensed to Tropicana. Murdock said in a statement that the Dole juice operations would benefit from Seagram’s extensive distribution network and that the deal would bolster the Dole brand name throughout the world. Dole’s canned pineapple juice business is excluded.

Dole’s stock rose 62.5 cents to $25 a share Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange; Seagram slipped 12.5 cents to $29.375.

Dole, with $3.4 billion in annual revenue, is one of the world’s largest suppliers of fresh and packaged fruits and vegetables. It also owns resorts it has developed on former pineapple lands on the Hawaiian island of Lanai.

Dole previously tried to split its food and real estate businesses by spinning off a minority stake in Castle & Cooke Homes Inc., its residential property development arm, in 1992.

But last month it reacquired the 17% of Castle & Cooke it did not already own.

Still, Dole’s food and real estate businesses will become separate companies this year, said analyst Timothy S. Ramey at C.J. Lawrence/Deutsche Bank Securities Corp. in New York. This time, however, the real estate company will likely include the Hawaiian resorts, which he said are Dole’s “real hidden asset.”