Carroll's Greencore stake placed with investors

PROPERTY DEVELOPER Liam Carroll’s 29.9 per cent stake in food company Greencore was placed with 40 institutional investors yesterday at €1.35 a share.

The stock was placed in the market on behalf of Ulster Bank Ireland Ltd, which had funded Mr Carroll’s share-buying spree in Greencore in 2006 and 2007.

The bank recently took charge of the holding following the collapse of Mr Carroll’s Zoe property group of companies.

Ulster Bank, a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland, issued a regulatory announcement yesterday informing the market that it no longer held any voting rights over the 59.9 million shares.

It is understood the share placing was handled by Hoare Govett, another subsidiary of RBS, and Goodbody Stockbrokers.

Mr Carroll’s stake was sold at a discount to the market price. Greencore’s shares closed down 2.7 per cent in Dublin yesterday at €1.413.

A number of institutional investors in Greencore are believed to have increased their holdings in the business, which has a large convenience foods division in the UK. These include Standard Life, JP Morgan and Newton, an arm of BNY Mellon Asset Management.

It is understood that Polaris Capital Management in Boston and Letko Brosseau Associates in Montreal are now Greencore’s two biggest shareholders, following Mr Carroll’s removal from the share register.

Mr Carroll spent more than €240 million buying Greencore stock at the height of the property boom.

The sale of his shares netted Ulster Bank about €80.8 million, roughly one-third of the original cost of the holding.

Mr Carroll’s investment was seen as a play on Greencore’s substantial property assets, which include large former Irish Sugar factory sites in Mallow and Carlow towns and a large tract of land in Littlehampton in the south of England.

The collapse of the Irish property market and the onset of recession have substantially eroded the potential value of Greencore’s sites in Mallow and Carlow.

Greencore has said it will hold the Irish properties until the market rebounds.

Ulster Bank took charge of Mr Carroll’s shareholding in Greencore after his Zoe group of companies collapsed following lengthy legal proceedings.

Mr Carroll’s 29.3 per cent holding in Irish Continental Group was also sold recently by Goodbody Stockbrokers at €12.20 a share. This was roughly half the level at which he had bought them in 2007 and resulted in AIB taking a hit of about €88 million on a loan advanced to buy the ICG stock.

Greencore’s sales fell last year by 15 per cent to just over €1.1 billion. Its operating profit declined to €46.9 million from €63.7 million.

No comment was available from Greencore.