Glanbia in talks to sell its Irish agri-business
Glanbia is in discussion about the possible disposal of its Irish dairy and agri-business interests.
The sale would be to Glanbia Co-operative Society, with 54.6% of the shares the majority shareholder in Glanbia.
The farmer shareholders and co-op members would gain control of the key businesses that relate to them, leaving the company to concentrate on its US and international businesses, cheese and nutritionals.
A statement issued today at the same time as the company released its financial results for last year said talks were progressing well.
“The discussions are underpinned by a clear rationale and represent a unique opportunity to transform Glanbia,” the statement said.
The firm reported 19% drop in pre-tax profits for the year ending 2009, in what it called a very challenging environment.
Pre-tax profits fell to €97.4m from €120.3m while revenues declined by 18% to €1.83bn from €2.232bn.
The global economic recession last year led to ‘extreme volatility’ in global dairy markets in the first half of the year, which led to a significant impact on the company’s revenue, profitability and earnings.
“We contained the decline in our financial results with a strong performance by Global Nutritionals, a resilient performance by US Cheese and the benefits of strategic cost reductions.
“This cost competitiveness focus will continue into 2010,” said chief executive John Moloney.
The company said 2009 was a year of negative returns for Irish dairy processors and farm suppliers due to the scale and pace of market changes in the first half of the year.
The deep consumer recession also resulted in an extremely competitive food retailing environment.
Revenues at its Dairy Ireland operations fell by 23.3% to €1.028bn while operating profits slumped by 51.7% to €24m.
Article courtesy of The Evening Echo newspaper.
