This is a subscriber-only article
DEAR SIR: I would like to bring to your attention the fact that Glanbia share trading is not plain sailing for everybody.
I am a 54-year-old son of an 86-year-old shareholder (87th birthday approaching) who has been unsuccessfully trying to have the shares transferred into my name.
I am a non-dairy farmer who spent approximately €17,000 on farm feed last year and a similar figure yearly going back for the past 10 years.
I have a receipt for money paid to Glanbia for the purchase of shares and stamp duty in September 2012, only for it to be returned in early 2013 because my local area didn’t have a meeting to ratify my admission as a shareholder in time.
Sometime after my application for the purchase of extra shares, Glanbia announced a rollout of the PLC shares and suspended all co-op share trading. My cheque was returned. I needed to purchase extra shares to bring me up to 2,000 shares, which was the minimum threshold for a new shareholder.
Since then I have been in constant contact with my branch manager, pushing for my case to be recognised, and I was assured that this autumn people like me would have been facilitated when the new trading period was announced. However this has not happened.
People like my father are been forced to sell their shares back to the co-op to be dispersed to dairy farmers and aspiring dairy farmers.
Trading farmers who want to continue as shareholders, which in my case would be three generations, are being excluded. It was always my intention to continue that tradition.
This trading window was designed and structured with one goal and that was to facilitate the expansion of the dairy sector, with scant regard for anybody else.
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