New York, Nov 17 - CoolBrands International Inc. said on Friday it appointed a new chief executive and reconstituted its board of directors as part of a series of actions aimed at giving the ice cream maker time to recover from financial problems.
The maker of Eskimo Pies said co-Chairman and Chief Executive David Stein resigned as CEO and as a member of the board in order to facilitate a deal with a group that agreed to buy the $21.7 million of debt of its bankrupt joint venture Americana Foods. That debt is guaranteed by CoolBrands.
The group controlled by Michael Serruya, called 2118769 Ontario Inc., agreed to grant CoolBrands a forebearance on the debt.
In exchange for the forebearance, CoolBrands replaced its four independent directors and Stein with three new independent directors. It also appointed Serruya as interim chief executive and issued Serruya's group warrants representing about 9.8 percent of CoolBrands' shares.
Stein will remain with CoolBrands as head of strategic planning.
CoolBrands, which has $25 million in debt, said that it expects the actions to give it sufficient time to restructure from what it called "serious financial difficulty."
CoolBrands also said it was selling its CoolBrands Dairy unit to Healthy Foods Holdings for $45 million in cash, plus a $5 million subordinated note and a warrant to purchase up to 2 million shares.