Canada link may boost IAWS

IAWS's link-up with Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons has been understandably well-received by the markets. The joint venture with the Wendy's subsidiary gives IAWS a relatively low-risk entry into the North American market, with Cuisine de France providing the baking expertise and technology to go with with Tim Hortons' distribution capacity through its 2,000 stores in Canada and 200 in the northern United States.

If this joint venture is successful, and there is good reason to believe it will be, given that Tim Hortons will be putting up half the €225 million for the three planned bakeries, it should improve IAWS's profile in US capital markets and boost US institutional interest in the shares.

Already Fidelity is the biggest institutional investor in IAWS with around 7.5 per cent, with not a single Irish institution above the 3 per cent disclosure level. That's down partly to the gradual and persistent movement of Irish institutional cash out of Irish stocks, but it is also a reflection of the lack of liquidity in the shares as a result of the 42 per cent held by the Irish Agricultural Wholesale Society.

This time last year, the society cut its stake in IAWS from 47.4 per cent to 42.8 per cent when 5.3 million shares were sold to mainly overseas institutions. That eased the liquidity log-jam in the shares - but only slightly.

If IAWS does have aspirations to expand its US institutional base, then it will have to address once again the liquidity problem posed by the 42 per cent of the shares locked up in the society. US institutions like to be able to trade stock in size - and certainly in units of a million shares.

That simply is not possible and it means that if the Tim Hortons link-up does register on US institutional radar screens and boosts IAWS's profile, those investors will not be able to buy in the size they want.

One solution would be for the society to further reduce its stake through a placing with institutions, and capitalise on North American and European investment interest in the stock. There is really no reason why the co-ops who own the society should control so much of IAWS, especially as releasing some of that equity would be of immeasurable value in making IAWS stock more attractive to overseas institutions.