A weakening stock price means the distribution is now worth €56m less than when deal was approved last year
The deal will see shares valued at €173m handed over to individual members, reducing the co-operative’s collectively owned stake in Glanbia to 23.7pc – still by far the largest single holding in the agri-foods business.
The spin-out was approved by co-op members at a special general meeting last October.
While the move means co-op members will be free to cash out a share of their stake in Glanbia, the PLC’s weakened share price means the distribution is worth around €56m less than when members approved the process last year.
The co-op said it will mean a distribution of shares worth over €16,804 to an average active Tirlán co-op member – farmers who supply milk to the dairy – based on a Glanbia PLC closing share price of €11.51 last Friday.
Over 11,000 Tirlán members will benefit from the spin-out of shares, the co-op said.
Tirlán chairperson John Murphy said that the co-op board was pleased to be in a position to return value to members.
“It is important that we return value to our 11,000 farm family members, many of whom have invested in their farm businesses and have built our organisation into the world-class business that it is today. This latest distribution of value brings the total number of shares spun-out to over 63.5 million with a current value of over €731m,” he said.
Under the terms of the spin-out, a Tirlán member with 1,000 shares in the co-op will receive 448 Glanbia shares, valued at €5,156 based on last Friday’s closing share price – and they will retain 893 co-op shares as well.
The value of the deal is well down on when it was first mooted last August. Based on the then valuation of the PLC, every 1,000 co-op shares would have been in line for €7,013 in Glanbia PLC shares, plus their new co-op allocation.
The spin-out will reduce the former Glanbia co-op’s stake in Glanbia PLC, although unless or until farmer-members actually sell their new shares the combined holding won’t change.
Tirlán members have approved potentially reducing the co-op’s shareholding in Glanbia PLC further, to below 17pc.
Glanbia shares have been among the worst-performing Irish stocks in recent months. The shares are down 35pc in the last 12 months and dropped to as low as €9.20 each at one point in April – almost half where they had traded in early 2024
That underperformance has prompted a call from a shareholder named Clearway Capital, an activist investor based in Frankfurt, for Glanbia to be split up, including lobbying Tirlán and its members.
At Glanbia’s annual general meeting (AGM) earlier this month, Clearway founding partner Gianluca Ferrari said the reasons for the relatively weak share price needed to be scrutinised. This was the price it had been at in 2013, and there was no gain since – despite a strong bull market.
“Over the past decade the shares have swung wildly,” he said. “They’ve approached €20, only to fall back to €10 again. More than once.
“Yet the underlying businesses, when taken separately, have always been worth more than what the share price at any given time would imply.”
Mr Ferrari claimed that Glanbia is a “sprawling and complex conglomerate” comprising three very different businesses.
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