Glanbia’s independent shareholders approved the proposed creation of Glanbia Ireland at an ‘extraordinary general meeting’ this morning, May 22.
The respective shareholders of Glanbia PLC and Glanbia Co-op agreed the proposed transaction after an overwhelming 93.1% of the co-op’s shareholders voted for the venture at a general meeting last Thursday, May 18.
Approximately 2,400 eligible co-op shareholders turned up to cast their votes at the special meeting held last week.
Under the agreement, the co-op is expected to pay €112 million to acquire a 60% stake in Glanbia PLC’s Dairy Ireland division; consisting of Glanbia Consumer Products and Glanbia Agribusiness.
It will also distribute approximately 5.9 million PLC shares – 2% of the issued share capital – to over 14,000 individual co-op members in a ‘spin-out’ deal.
The value of the share ‘spin-out’ is an estimated €100 million, based on the Glanbia PLC closing share price of €17.13 on February 17 this year.
This would be worth approximately €6,637 for a member with the average shareholding; for active dairy farmer members the average value of the spin-out would be €10,791 (based on the above share price).
With an expected annual revenue of €1.5 billion; Glanbia Ireland will own consumer and agri brands such as Avonmore, GAIN, Kilmeaden Cheese, Premier and Wexford.
J&E Davy and Goodbody Stockbrokers have been appointed as joint book-runners on the placing, which will take place via an accelerated book build process.
At present, the co-op owns about 36.5% of the issued share capital of Glanbia. However, if the placing and the spin-out are fully executed then the co-op’s holding will fall to 31.5%.
The deal is subject to certain completion conditions but should close in early July of this year.