Northern Ireland’s main dairy processor, Dale Farm has acquired the Welsh premium cheese company, Ash Manor Cheese. The £15.9m business had operating profits of £391,522 for the year ending January 2013.

Dale Farm chief executive David Dobbin told the Irish Farmers Journal that “there is plenty of spare capacity and we will be driving the business harder than the former owner had planned. We have ambitious growth plans. Wrexham is close to distribution centres for major British supermarkets. This acquisition makes us more local”.

Established in 1989, the newly acquired business will continue to trade as Ash Manor Cheese. It adds value to cheese by grating, slicing, shaving, dicing and crumbing.

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Ash Manor had £5m of capital invested over the four years to January 2013, with net assets stated at £2.44m and little or no debt.

Dale Farm also has customers for curd and bulk cheese, including exports to Russia, but wants to ‘lock in’ to added value customers before 2015, when most of the additional dairy production in Ireland will have to go for export.

Owned by the producer co-op, United Dairy Farmers, Dale Farm now has four production sites in NI and three in Britain.

Capital Group increases Glanbia shareholding

Last week the stock exchange was notified that the Capital Group has increased its shareholding in Glanbia PLC to 5.04%. This makes the Capital Group the second largest shareholder in the company after the co-op, which now owns 41.3%.

According to Bloomberg, after the co-op the next 22% of Glanbia PLC is now in the hands of 39 individuals, investment funds or companies.

Of note in this list of 39 is former group managing director John Moloney, who owns 0.09% of the shares, while former deputy group managing director William Murphy owns 0.8%. The Central Bank of Norway, which also manages the Norwegian Government’s pension fund, is also a significant shareholder, owning 1.11% of the €3.2bn group.

The Capital Group has been increasing its investments in other food groups recently, increasing its ownership of Associated British Foods from 6.01% to 7%. At the same time it has reduced its shareholding in Bank of Ireland from 9.11% to 7.92%.

The Capital Group, founded in 1931 and headquartered in Los Angeles, is one of the world’s largest investment management companies with managed assets of around one trillion US dollars.

It is made up of a group of investment management companies. The firm was founded in 1931 by Jonathan Bell Lovelace.