Pinnacle Agriculture Holdings LLC, through its subsidiary Jimmy Sanders Inc., announced that it has purchased the agricultural input retail assets of Arkansas County Cooperative, headquartered in Stuttgart, Ark.
The retail locations acquired by Sanders are in Almyra and DeWitt, Ark., and will be managed by Jim Grantham. Jack Coleman, area operations manager for Sanders, said the farmers served by Arkansas County Co-op can expect a smooth transition.
“We are excited to take on such an important portion of the Arkansas County Co-op business, which will help us continue our expansion in Central Arkansas, providing a complete line of quality farm input products and services to our grower customers,” said Grantham. “We commend Arkansas County Co-op for their service to area growers, and we look forward to continuing this in the future.”
Arkansas County Co-op, which was founded in 1953 by a group of local farmers in Almyra, will continue to operate the fuel and farming hardware portions of their business. “We are excited about the partnership with Sanders and look forward to working together to meet the needs of area growers,” said Chuck Freemyer, manager of Arkansas County Co-op.
The transaction is just the latest in a string of recent retail acquisitions by Pinnacle. Earlier this fall, the company reported that it had acquired Acuff Farm Supply in Lubbock County, Texas, as well as Mathis Farm Supply in Melber, Ky., and the agriculture retail assets associated with Lyons, Ga.-based G and C Fertilizer, dba U.S. #1 Farm Center (GM Nov. 11, p. 1).
Pinnacle, which was founded in 2012 by a management team led by industry veteran Kenny Cordell and financed by Apollo Global Management LLC, formed a strategic partnership with Jimmy Sanders in September 2012 to pursue the development of a national agricultural input distribution network (GM Sept. 17, 2012). Pinnacle says it hopes to become a “best-in-class retail distribution business through acquisitions and ‘greenfield’ retail establishment.”
Apollo is the investment firm that purchased United Agri Products North America in 2003 from ConAgra Foods Inc. (GM Nov. 3, 2003), and then formed UAP Holding Corp, which it sold to Agrium Inc. in 2007 for $2.65 billion (GM Dec. 10, 2007).