Greencore Share Discussion Threads

[lbo] 14/1/2010 10:39

Margings in the sector under pressue



Updates from Northern and Premier confirm sales growing
but margins weaker

[lbo] 12/1/2010 12:08

GREENCORE chief executive Patrick Coveney's total pay package jumped to €1.16 million in 2009 from €687,000 a year earlier when no bonuses were paid to the company's top executives after massive losses were uncovered at a Scottish water subsidiary.

And disgraced former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick was paid €13,000 in directors fees for his months on the board before he resigned in December of 2008. A year earlier he earned €51,000 in directors' fees.

[lbo] 11/1/2010 22:17

LOL

Yeah Ireland leaving the EURO would have no effect on an ISEQ listed Greencore! Greencore themselves are trying to leave its Ireland listing by moving its listing to the UK.



So yet again it seems you don't know the facts!

[lochgarman] 16/12/2009 18:41

LBO..What has this post got to do with Greencore?

You are clutching at straws a bit now arent you.

[lbo] 12/12/2009 13:53

In a report out yesterday, Standard Bank said that Ireland -- along with Greece -- was among several countries in an "intolerable" economic situation that might lead to bailouts or even an exit from the euro area by the end of next year.

"Countries like Ireland and Greece may not be able to grow out of the current crisis," said Steve Barrow, head of Group of 10 foreign-exchange strategy at the bank in London.

"With interest-rate cuts, exchange-rate depreciation and significant fiscal support all off-limits for these countries, bailouts or even pullouts from EMU may happen next year."

In his report, Mr Barrow had said the absence of a mechanism to permit so-called fiscal transfers within the 16-nation eurozone might undermine the exchange-rate system.

Concern some nations will need to be rescued may drive the premium investors demand to hold 10-year Greek debt instead of benchmark German bunds to 400 basis points next year, from 214 basis points today, and the Irish premium may also jump, he said.

"The widening difference in yield, or spread, between Greek and Irish bonds and German securities may accelerate, increasing the debt burden for these countries," Mr Barrow wrote in the report.

The Irish-German 10-year spread may rise to 300 basis points next year, from about 170 basis points, he said. The spread averaged about 43 basis points in the past five years, with the Greek-German average at 67 basis points in the period.

"It can, in many ways, be a more destructive line of attack for the market than currency pressure," Mr Barrow wrote

[lbo] 10/12/2009 18:21

Lenders face up to €166m loss after sale of Carroll interest in Greencore

[lbo] 02/12/2009 10:57

Talk of delisting now from Dublin



With 80pc of its business in the UK, Greencore's recent results have been persistently dragged down by weak sterling, culminating in last week's announcement of a 14pc fall in full-year earnings per share

[lbo] 30/11/2009 16:28

The pump and dump to try and offload Liam Carrols shares! LOL



Even excluding the charges, underlying profits more than halved to €23.5m

[lochgarman] 29/11/2009 19:41

Greencore's repositioning leaves it in a strong position
29 November 2009 By Samantha McCaughren

On the face of it, a recession should result in everyone going back to basics by making their own sandwiches and dusting off their cookery books.

In the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse, that's what people did - but Greencore has found that the shift to thrift was relatively short-lived.

When people found that they still had some money in their pockets, it emerged that convenience was still what they wanted, albeit at a lower cost.

Greencore, which does most of its business in Britain, has had to follow these shifting consumer needs by changing its product lines very quickly.

The company, which reported full-year results last week, appears to have driven volumes by offering value such as the '99p sandwich'. It also benefited from a move away from eating out to premium dining at home.

Operating profits before exceptionals and on a constant currency basis were up 7.9 per cent to €72.9 million.

Around 64 per cent of Greencore's business is convenience foods with sandwiches, sushi and salads accounting for around 33 per cent of this.

Around 20 per cent relates to prepared meals, with cooking sauces accounting for 10 per cent and chilled sauces and soups accounting for another 10 per cent. The company also makes deserts and cakes.

The chief executive of Greencore, Patrick Coveney, said that the run up to Christmas last year had been a ''very worrying'' time. ''The view we took was that it was likely to stay bad and we set about making decisions so we could do okay in an environment which would be pretty difficult," he said.

The company's products don't have a long shelf life and 40 per cent of goods it sells were launched in the past 12 months. Greencore quickly went about getting value ranges on the shelves in the early part of 2009. At the same time, it took ''a very, very hard'' approach to cost reductions.

''By the time we got into the second half we had a range that better met the needs of consumers and we had a cost base which was going to enable us to defend our margins in a continually difficult market.

''What then happened, which was fortunate, was that we began to see a better recovery than we had planned for," said Coveney. ''We began to see consumers, when making the choice to eat at home, wanting to buy premium products so they could have something that was cheap relative to going to a restaurant."

The company has also moved to improve relationships with existing customers such as Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda. One analyst said that smaller players in the convenience food sector had gone bust.

At the same time, Greencore had renegotiated its debt in April, allowing it to tell customers that it was a reliable and stable player in the market while larger rivals struggled.

While the company is dealing well with the recession, growth in Britain is likely to remain modest. But Greencore's big play is the US and Coveney has committed to having some news in this regard within the next six months.

[lochgarman] 29/11/2009 19:40

Greencore starting to look cheap

Sunday November 29 2009
NOW that Liam Carroll has offloaded his 29.7 per cent stake in ICG, Greencore is likely to be next on the block. With Canadian hedge fund Letko, Brosseau having upped its shareholding to 9.95 per cent last week and the group reporting pedestrian full-year results this week, stand by for action at the old Irish Sugar Company.

It's been a busy few weeks for Greencore. Not alone have the Canadian barbarians been getting ready to storm the gates, it also disposed of its bottled water subsidiary, the scene of a €21m fraud in 2008, for up to £17.5m, while there has also been interest in its malting business.

This week, Greencore also reported that operating profits fell by almost 6 per cent to €72.9m before a €23.9m exceptional charge. With the group almost completely stripped back to its core convenience foods division, it's hard to see Greencore continuing for much longer as a quoted company.

At the current €1.40 share price, Greencore is capitalised at just over €280m and will have year-end debts of €250m. With operating profits likely to exceed €65m this year, Greencore is starting to look cheap.

Sunday Independent

[lbo] 29/11/2009 15:25

A euro without the UK has cost us dear

[lbo] 26/11/2009 13:45

Numis has a reduce and €1.15 target for Greencore

[lochgarman] 25/11/2009 18:23

very happy with these results.....

net debt reduced by 49 million
free cash 84 million excellent and increased substantially from 08
excellent margin expsansion
ROCE increased.

very tasty indeed. Company hugely undervalued.

[lbo] 25/11/2009 08:13

Greencore drops to pre tax loss for year

[lbo] 18/11/2009 20:41

THE currency crisis is costing thousands of jobs and putting the viability of Ireland's export-dependent agri-food sector under threat, according to a report launched in Dublin yesterday.

[lbo] 03/11/2009 12:04

Pubs cut beer prices as pound slide leaves them 'high and dry'



Consumers are heading north in search of cheaper food and televisions, UK tourist numbers are sinking, and exporters such as food company Kerry Group and C&C, the maker of Bulmers cider, are suffering in their largest European market.

"It's nothing but bad news to Irish exporters," said Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Bloxham Stockbrokers in Dublin. "Sterling is a bigger negative force than in any other euro-region country. It's certainly something we could do without."

Almost 20pc of Irish exports go to Britain, where companies including Kerry, DCC and Greencore, which supplies more than 100 million ready meals to the UK, are being hit on their sales or the translation of profit back into euros.

[lbo] 19/10/2009 18:11

Sterling Weakness Adds to Ireland's Economic Troubles



"Between now and year-end sterling going to weaken further rather than strengthen," said Dublin-based Bloxham Stockbrokers chief economist Alan McQuaid. "This weakness in sterling is not good news for Ireland."

The food and drink industry, which accounts for two-thirds of exports not accounted for by multinational companies based in Ireland, is particularly vulnerable to this weakness in sterling. Approximately 43% of food and drink exports go to the U.K.

"The increasing weakness of sterling is having a crippling effect on our exports," said Paul Kelly, director of Food and Drink Industry Ireland.

[lbo] 27/9/2009 16:28

Sterling's slump adds to our woe



In proportionate terms, one of the most vulnerable is almost certainly Greencore. In the year to the end of September 2008 it derived 74 per cent of its turnover from the UK. While Greencore doesn't provide a geographic breakdown of its profits almost 60 per cent of its operating (pre-interest) profits came from its largely UK-based convenience foods division.

With the profits of its ingredients and property division being flattered by once-off property gains, Greencore's true dependence on the UK is almost certainly even greater than is suggested by its published results.

Some investors, who have bid up the Greencore share price by 50 per cent to €1.50 over the past two months in anticipation of some action when troubled property developer Liam Carroll's 29.7 per cent stake comes on the market, are perhaps thinking of taking their profits now.

[lbo] 15/9/2009 21:37

AIB: Pound, dollar fall to hurt exports

[lbo] 13/9/2009 11:08

Ulster Bank is considering whether to sell crashed developer Liam Carroll's 29 per cent stake in Greencore, according to sources.

[lbo] 10/9/2009 21:36

Carroll loses battle to save Zoe Group



The High Court has dismissed a last-ditch petition by developer Liam Carroll to get creditor protection and save his property empire from possible collapse.

The likely winding-up of one of the biggest property development groups in Ireland could put more pressure on the government over the cost of dealing with tens of billions of euros in risky property loans via a controversial "bad bank" plan