Following the deal to sell its entire US business for £817m, Greencore announced its intention to return £509m to shareholders.

Initially, this was by way of a special dividend, but at an extraordinary general meeting in Dublin, some shareholders voiced concerns about the tax implications of the proposed scheme.

It will now return the £509m by way of a tender offer.

It announced further details of the tender offer this Thursday, which included offering a price of 195p per ordinary share.

Tender price

The tender price represents a premium of 17.5% to yesterday’s closing price of 166p per share and a premium of 11.9% to the volume weighted average price per share over the last month.

The maximum number of shares that may be acquired under the offer is 261,025,641, representing around 37% of Greencore's issued share capital.

The tender offer opens on 20 December and will close on 29 January 2019 with cash payments expected no later than 7 February 2019.

Final dividend

A final dividend of 3.37p per share will also be paid on 5 February 2019, which is payable to all shareholders on the register on 11 January 2019.

Greencore will hold its annual general meeting on 29 January where shareholders will be asked for their approval of the tender offer.

Greencore shares, which are down 24% over the past year, are up 3% in early trading this morning at £1.72.