Suit claims U.S. Sugar kept offer secret

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 31 (UPI) -- A class-action suit filed Thursday in Florida alleged that U.S. Sugar rejected an offer to buy the company that would have profited shareholders.

A Coral Gables, Fla., firm, Colson Hicks Edison filed the suit on behalf of the company's 4,000 employees and ex-employee shareholders, who own 38 percent of the company's outstanding shares.

The suit claims company Chairman William S. White; his wife, Claire Mott White; their son Ridgway White; and Chief Executive Officer Robert Buker kept a $575 million offer to buy the company a secret and paid former CEO Robert Dolson $10 million, "to keep quiet."

The offer came from citrus producers,The Lawrence Group, a report in the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post said.

Buker, reached in Brazil by the Post, said the offer was, "dramatically below what the value of the company was."

Buker estimated the company, which owns 138,000 acres, with 100,000 of those Palm Beach County, Fla., was worth more than $2.5 billion.

He called the allegation of paying off the former CEO "ridiculous."

"The board does not have an obligation to give a ridiculous offer to the stockholders," he told the Post.