Trinity Springs Ltd. could sell for $20 million to an unidentified buyer if a majority of shareholders agree to sell the company's assets at a special shareholder's meeting in Boise today.
The meeting was called to discuss a proposed merger with Global Resource Partners Inc. that could result in a transfer of all the company's assets to the new owner, while keeping the company name. The owners of Global Resource Partners have not been identified.
According to a proxy statement sent to shareholders, the sale of the company's common and preferred stock, if the deal is successful, would bring about $5 per share.
Trinity Springs—once based in Ketchum—was founded by Jock Bell, Stan Acker and Mark Johnson in 1990 to bottle spring water from Paradise, Idaho, near Anderson Reservoir. Company officials have long claimed that the spring in Paradise produces water that has not mixed with Earth's surface water since the last ice age, 16,000 years ago, and is therefore exceedingly pure.
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After distributing bottled water around the United States for several years, the company ran into financial trouble. In 2004, it was bought in a hostile takeover by AMCON, a publicly traded, Nebraska-based distributing company.
Shareholders fought the hostile takeover in Idaho's 5th District Court and two years ago won back control of the company from AMCON.
In the past few years, the company has racked up more than $1 million in legal bills and not bottled water for more than two years, company documents state. During that time, it has been courting buyers, including Whole Foods.
Former Trinity Springs board member Tony Ballard said he is eager to attend today's meeting to learn more about the potential future of the company.
"We will know more after the meeting," he said.
Hailey resident Diana Whiting, a Trinity Springs shareholder, said she bought stock in the company because it was a "very good source of water" with no traces of radioactivity from the nuclear age.
Whiting has not decided if she will sell on Wednesday. A majority of voting shareholders is required for the merger to succeed.
"A lot of people who have been going round and round in this dance with AMCON want to get out while the getting is good," she said.
Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com
