Kerry Group has extended its offer for Golden Vale for a week, until 3 p.m. on next Friday, having fallen short of the 80 per cent acceptances from Golden Vale shareholders needed to declare the offer unconditional.

It received valid acceptances of the offer representing 115,221,008 Golden Vale ordinary shares - or 72.41 per cent of Golden Vale's share capital.

"The fact that we have extended it for just one week is a reflection of our confidence that we will be in a position to declare it unconditional as far as acceptances are concerned, once the remaining acceptances have been received by next Friday," said a spokesman for Kerry Group.

Kerry could have extended the offer for an unspecified period.

Just under 57 per cent of the shareholders opted for Kerry's offer of one of its own shares for every 10 Golden Vale shares, 13 cents per share in cash, plus interim and special dividends worth another 4.26 cents per share.

There is also a straight cash alternative of €1.50 per Golden Vale share plus the 4.26 cents in special and interim dividends.

"Around 57 per cent of the total number of shares have elected for the Kerry share offer. If you compare that to the number of acceptances, it means that about 80 per cent of the acceptances received elected for the Kerry share offer. Again that is very encouraging," said the spokesman.

Kerry tabled its offer when its own shares were trading at €13.70 - producing the initial valuation for the offer of €1.5426 per share. But Kerry shares have risen in the past number of weeks, making the offer more attractive to Golden Vale shareholders.

It is thought likely that institutional shareholders, which own about one-third of Golden Vale, and most of the non-farmer private shareholders, who own another one-third of the group, have accepted the Kerry offer.

The key to Kerry's bid has been to get the acceptance of the milk suppliers and other farmers who hold the remaining shares.

Before the deadline for the bid closed, Kerry managing director Mr Denis Brosnan addressed five meetings of members of Golden Vale Co-op to focus on issues of specific interest to Golden Vale milk suppliers and co-op members.

"A lot of concerns of milk suppliers and farmer shareholders were addressed in those meetings and I think that was reflected in yesterday's first closing," said the spokesman.

"It was a very high acceptance level - in fact, an unprecedented level of response at the first closing date for such a shareholder base. There is a very extensive shareholder base in Golden Vale."