Glanbia plc has completed a €50 million share buy-back scheme, the group has confirmed.

Originally announced on November 9, 2020, the buy-back scheme was put in place to reduce the share capital of the global nutrition company, with any shares repurchased for this purpose cancelled, the Irish agri-business giant says.

Confirming today (Monday, April 12) that the scheme has concluded, a spokesperson for Glanbia said:

“Between November 9, 2020, and April 9, 2021, Glanbia deployed €50 million, repurchasing 4,790,502 ordinary shares on Euronext Dublin at an average price of €10.4373, which represents a discount of 2% to the volume weighted average price over the same period.

“Following cancellation of repurchased shares Glanbia will have 291,295,182 ordinary shares in issue,” the spokesperson added.

This equates to about 1.618% fewer shares in issue compared to before the scheme began.

While this programme involves Glanbia plc only, with no co-op involvement, the move is of obvious interest for farmers who are members of Glanbia Co-op.

Glanbia Co-op’s percentage shareholding in the plc has increased slightly from 31.5% to 32%, due to the co-op holding a greater percentage of the reduced number of plc shares in issue.

In other news, Glanbia Ireland is expected to announce its milk price for March supplies later today. Stay tuned to Agriland for more on this later.