The share performance of Fyffes (104p this week) has been pretty dispiriting in the past few years, with the shares currently trading no higher than they did five years ago and well below the 115p takeover offer from Dole Foods a few years ago. So it was refreshing to see the McCann's spending over £600,000 buying more shares in the company this week.
Many in the market find Fyffes' under-performance perplexing and cannot understand why Fyffes with secure supplies of both dollar and ACP bananas should be trading at 25 per cent discounts to Dole and Chiquita. Dole's share price has risen 31 per cent to date; Chiquita has risen 37 per cent; and Fyffes share price has fallen 5 per cent and has underperformed the Irish market by almost 34 per cent.
Company broker Davy believes this under-performance has been "perverse", but there has still been no rush by institutions to buy the share. Davy's target of a 130p to 150p price range for Fyffes may be too challenging, but the ratings gap' against its two main rivals seems overdone.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)