The Dealer sees that Glanbia Ireland is set to move out of its current shared office space with Glanbia plc and into its new headquarters at Abbey Quarter in Kilkenny city centre – the site of the old Smithwicks brewery.

Glanbia Ireland will be anchor tenants in the new development, with space for 300 employees. Some are suggesting that the move away from the plc offices is the first public signal of a potential separation between the two entities. The plc owns 40% of Glanbia Ireland, with the other 60% owned by Glanbia Co-op, which in turn owns 31% of the plc.

Glanbia Ireland owns all the milk processing and agribusiness stores which is a low-margin business and not very attractive to plc investors.

It’s also not attractive for investors to have one shareholder (co-op) owning so much of the plc.

Some predict the plc will sell its share of Glanbia Ireland to the co-op and the co-op will sell some of its shareholding in the plc to help pay for it.

How good that is for farmers will all come down to the valuation of Glanbia Ireland and the share price of the plc at the time of sale. Watch this space.