Greencore chief’s holding hits €1.3m

Greencore chief executive Patrick Coveney has seen the value of his holding in the group grow to €1.35m on foot of its sustained strong performance.

Mr Coveney, brother of Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, said that all shareholders who had taken up the share offer at the time of Greencore’s €113m takeover of Uniq, a British company which makes ready meals, would benefit from the company’s strong performance.

“I took up the rights issue at 46c a share. Any shareholders who participated in the rights issue will benefit,” said Mr Coveney.

Greencore shares were trading at over 70p (86c) yesterday after the company reported revenue growth of 50%, which was partly due to an increase in Greencore’s UK market share.

The figures were reported in Greencore’s interim report for the first half of the year.

Greencore’s shares are now listed in sterling as the company moved its listing to the London Stock Exchange in January.

Revenues at the food production company rose to £567.7m from £378.6m while the company reported pre-tax profits of £15.8m for the six months to the end of March.

Mr Coveney said that the kind of products that the company made would be in demand no matter how the economy performed, but he cautioned that the poor weather in spring may affect some of the company’s main products, such as takeaway sandwiches and salads.

“The kind of products we supply, people look for in good times and bad. We tend to do very well in good seasonal weather. We see an increase in volume of sandwich products and salad. The weak spring is one of the reason we are less confident about the second half of the year,” he said.

Strongest growth was in supermarkets’ own-branded goods manufactured by the Greencore group, notably chilled soups and sauces.

Figures released in the interim report did not include revenue from Greencore’s latest US acquisition, MarketFare, which will be included in the figures for the second half of the year.