Last week's decision by Lyons Irish Holdings to sell its Dunkin' Donuts shops and give up the doughnut franchise is good news for the minority shareholders who hold 20 per cent of the shares.

There is now absolutely no reason for Lyons to sit on the £51 million lying on its balance sheet and a distribution of that cash to shareholders should now be carried out. That would give the minorities a handy £10 million in a special payout and would fully justify the shareholders' decision to reject the inadequate takeover offer from Unilever last year.

Lyons is one of those companies Ardagh is another that springs to mind

which have insisted on hoarding vast amounts of cash on the basis that it is continuing to look for acquisitions and so needed the cash.

With the company now having taken a decision to concentrate on its core tea business in the Republic and the North, its huge cash flow should be more than adequate for its day-to-day financial needs.

Even a company of the size of Unilever which bought out Allied Domecq's controlling interest in Lyons last year and then failed to persuade the minority shareholders to sell can hardly be content with so much cash lying idle in the Lyons balance sheet. If the cash cannot be put to good use and it is hard to see what Lyons could buy in Ireland without running up against the competition watchdog it should be given to shareholders.