The legal and financial documents are being finalized, but the sale of the U.S. subsidiary of the British sugar giant, Tate & Lyle, was effective as of Tuesday, said Rick Dorn, chairman of Rocky Mountain Sugar Growers Cooperative.

The picture-taking ceremony, if there is one, will come later, Dorn said. We completed the inventory last week, said Dorn, who lives in Billings and raises sugar beets near Hardin.

The Western Sugar Co. has refineries in Billings, Lovell, Wyo., Fort Morgan and Greeley, Colo., and Bayard and Scottsbluff, Neb. Its corporate office is in Denver.

The sale comes just a year after sugar beet growers in the four states formed a co-op and completed a financial feasibility study to buy the company.

Randon Wilson, a Salt Lake City attorney who has handled the purchase for the cooperative, said Tuesday there are some practical difficulties of getting all the paperwork completed.

We are pleased that weve got this nailed down, he said. There will be some final closing activities later this month.

Wilson said a letter to the growers will be sent explaining how the purchase has come together and will include the closing balance sheet and interest rates for loan financing.

He said the co-ops board of directors may come to Billings for a dinner and a round of high-fives at some point.

Tate & Lyle in May 2000 decided to divest itself of its U.S. sugar interests. In addition to Western, the British firm on Thursday completed the sale of its cane sugar unit, Domino Sugar, to an investment group headed by Alfonso and J. Pepe Fanjul, the Florida cane sugar magnates.

Domino was sold for $180 million, and the sale price on Western was $48 million. Last year, Tate & Lyle offered Western Sugar Co. to its 1,100 growers for $78 million, or half of its estimated liquidation value. In early February, sugar beet farmers in four states subscribed 150,000 acres to the growers cooperative to buy Western.

However, this spring, about 130,000 acres were planted. Growers in Montana and Wyoming were strong supporters in subscribing acres, but those in Colorado and Nebraska lagged. That is when the co-op asked for a renegotiated price, based on production value.

Dorn said then that there is a mechanism for growers who did not commit acres this year to buy into the plan. To complete the individual appraisals and financing, it was announced in early June that the closing was extended to July 31.

In 1985, Tate & Lyle bought the Great Western Sugar Co. which was in bankruptcy. Western has operated the six refineries since. Tate & Lyle, suffering revenue setbacks in the past year and a half and a loss of stock value, began divesting its overseas properties in Australia, Zambia and the United States.

The sugar industry in the United States is in a bind. Last year, because of national and world over-supply, producers forfeited large amounts of sugar to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The forfeitures cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Recently the USDA announced it was selling 150,000 tons of that sugar for ethanol production.

Congress is now debating some economic relief for sugar beet producers this year and is trying to rewrite the national farm law, which expires with the 2002 crop year.