Food giant Goya canning a sale to Carlyle Group

Spanish food giant Goya is canning plans to sell itself to a Wall Street firm that wanted to take the company public, The Post has learned.

Goya, known for its canned beans, coffee, bottled sauces and tropical drinks, was in late-stage sale talks to sell itself to private equity firm Carlyle Group when the two sides came to loggerheads about the founding family’s ongoing role, sources told The Post.

Goya — still owned and operated by descendants of Prudencio and Carolina Unanue, who founded it in 1936 — had been hoping to hash out a deal that would also leave them at the helm, sources said.

But David Rubenstein’s Carlyle, the last-known bidders, didn’t want to invest in the Jersey City company at a high valuation of between $3 billion and $4 billion if it could not run the business. Carlyle’s execs wanted to eventually take the Latin American food giant public and did not feel it was well-run enough to do so, sources with direct knowledge of the late-stage talks said.

“Carlyle felt they were not doing a great job with the business,” a source familiar with Carlyle’s thinking said. “They needed to professionalize Goya” to get it ready for an IPO, the second source with knowledge of the talks said.

The founding family has been waffling over a sale since it hired Goldman Sachs to explore strategic options in May, sources added. The family initially wanted a minority investor, but when that failed they hesitatingly opened up to sales talks, sources told The Post.

“It was never clear whether it would get control,” one source said of Carlyle.

“I think the family that runs Goya is dysfunctional,” a second source said. “There are parts of the family that don’t want to sell control.”

“As previously stated, Goya is not for sale,” Goya Chief Executive Robert Unanue told The Post. “Goya is and will always be committed to building on our legacy of supporting our communities, established by our founding grandparents 83 years ago. We will never betray that mission,” said Unanue, a member of the third generation to run the operation.

The company’s long history in the United States started with a Lower Manhattan storefront selling olives and foods like sardines to Hispanic consumers before Prudencio and Carolina, both from Spain, moved their operation to Brooklyn.

Joseph Unanue, a second-generation owner, moved Goya to the Garden State in 1974 and eventually got its products in Walmart and other mass chains. In an effort to reach out to non-Hispanic customers, Joseph also led the charge in changing Goya’s labels in 1997 to include English as well as Spanish on the front, instead of just on the back.

In February 2004, Joseph’s son Andy was ousted from the company by Robert, the current CEO — sparking a NJ court battle that was settled a decade ago. The once-warring parties were on good speaking terms when Goldman entered the picture, sources said.

Carlyle did not return a request for comment.