Food and tourism shares have bad day on stock exchange

Irish food and tourism-related shares suffered heavy early losses following the confirmation of the Louth foot-and-mouth outbreak yesterday morning.

While food stocks recovered some ground in later trading, hotel and tourism-related stocks remained sharply lower as the market counted the potential cost of the disease and its accompanying travel restrictions on the industry.

Once the confirmation came, the reaction in the market was swift and all food stocks - even those with limited exposure to the foot-and-mouth outbreak - fell sharply. "It's ridiculous, we're seeing stocks dumped that are unlikely to be affected at all," said one dealer.

The biggest Irish food company, Kerry Group, saw its shares fall more than 10 per cent in the early burst of selling before they eventually closed down €1.07, or 8.3 per cent, on €11.80.

Glanbia - potentially the most exposed Irish agri-stock because of its exposure to primary pigmeat processing - initially fell almost 30 per cent from €0.59 to €0.41 before it recovered to close down nine cents on €0.50. Golden Vale was the only one of the agri-stocks not to recover some ground and the shares lost more than 22 per cent of their value, losing 19 cents to €0.67.

While Greencore and IAWS are primarily consumer foods manufacturers, they still have an exposure to the agri sector through their animal feed activities. Greencore fell 11 per cent at first before recovering to close down 12 cents on €2.90, while IAWS lost 40 cents to close at €7.

The two hotel stocks lost more than 10 per cent as the impact of the crisis on tourism was assessed by the market. Jurys Doyle - the biggest hotel chain in the country - fell from €8.80 to a low of €8 before closing on €8.11, while Ryan lost seven cents to €0.70, and tourist carrier, Irish Continental fell 55 cents to €6.25.