Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM) has disposed of its 5.9 per cent stake in Greencore, fuelling speculation that multimillionaire developer Liam Carroll is back in the market for shares in the food company.
While BIAM has not yet declared to the Irish Stock Exchange that it has sold down its Greencore shares, the institution is understood to have moved in recent days to take advantage of a selling opportunity.
Mr Carroll, Greencore's biggest individual shareholder with a stake of 21.6 per cent, first bought into the company last year. He is widely speculated to have his eye on the company's property portfolio, which includes significant sites in Carlow and Mallow, Co Cork.
Shares in the company closed last night at €5.03 after trading as high as €5.07, 1.21 per cent stronger on the day and up by 4.79 per cent in a week in which Irish shares lost 5.5 per cent amid a global equity market sell-off.
With a minor US shareholder called Millgate also said to have sold its Greencore shares, confirmation that BIAM had left the share register was established a day after Deutsche Bank declared it had accumulated 5.03 per cent of the company.
In addition, the bank noted that some of its subsidiaries, acting as fund managers, "hold some of the shares on behalf of a number of clients whose portfolios are managed on a discretionary basis".
A Deutsche spokeswoman in London would not say whether Mr Carroll was a client. "We cannot comment, either on or off the record, about our clients."
However, it is known that NCB Stockbrokers was active this week in the market for Greencore shares. The broker, through which Mr Carroll acquired his original Greencore stake last year from financier Dermot Desmond, has declined to comment.
Renewed interest in Greencore stock comes in the week after the company reported a 38 per cent rise in interim pretax profits to €35.4 million in the period to March. Such results, the first since the termination of Greencore's sugar processing business last year, cap a strong performance by its convenience food unit, which now makes the bulk of its profits.
If Mr Carroll made a successful bid for the company, he is considered likely to sell off the food division and concentrate on the company's property assets.
