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You are > Home > Kerry farmers get flavour of success
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Thursday, May 13, 2010
Kerry farmers get flavour of success
BY DONAL HICKEY
SO, it is possible to keep farmers happy – especially Kerry farmers who are lucky enough to be Kerry Group plc shareholders.
Whenever scores of farmers meet in the same room, you will almost certainly get a few to sound off about any number of issues. But those attending the Kerry Group annual general meeting, in Tralee, were just like the cats that got the cream.
They purred contentedly as chief executive Stan McCarthy went through yet another satisfactory report and confidently forecast a 10 per cent increase in earnings per share for this year.
At the moment, Kerry shares are worth €23 to €24 and are weathering the recession extremely well.
In the past, there would always be a few disgruntled shareholders and we sometimes saw former chief executives Denis Brosnan and Hugh Friel having to deal with tricky questions, but not even one surfaced at the meeting in the Brandon Hotel, Tralee, on Wednesday.
The group has generated enormous wealth for people, as the following simple calculation shows.
The group currently has a market value of €4.2 billion and between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the shares are held in County Kerry and the south west generally.
We won’t argue about a million or two, but that’s massive €2 billion worth of shares that’s largely in County Kerry.
People other than farmers also hold shares, of course. Some shrewd business people were among the first investors, including the legendary Mackey O’Shea, of Killarney, who always knew a winner when he saw one.
It’s probably safe to safe that, with many farmers retired or gone out of milk production, the shares, in some cases, may now be worth more than farming enterprises.
Kerry is now the top food ingredients and flavours company in the world, covering a huge range of foods, desserts, confectionary and drinks. Your breakfast cereal, yoghurt, ice cream, soft or alcoholic drink could well contain some of the group’s products.
The group is also a leading player in so-called consumer foods, such as Denny sausages, prepared meals, cheeses and cold meats you buy in your local shop or supermarket.
Ethnic foods, such as Mumbai spices and Sharwood’s tikka masala are also in the portfolio.
Last year, Kerry consumer foods performed well in Britain, where the group-owned Walls brand is huge.
But, according to Stan McCarthy, consumer foods did not do as well in Ireland because of reduced spending by customers and competition from supermarkets’ own-brand products.
It took only an hour to complete the business of the AGM which was told of a 9.3 per cent profit margin on sales of €4.5 billion for 2009.
Mattie Cronin, a farmer from Crohane, Killarney, introduced a note of levity close to the end of proceedings when he held up a copy of the annual report and suggested that it be sent to the banks, as an example of how business should be run.
He also suggested that the following line be appended to the report: "This document is for slow learners".
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