As exclusively revealed last Friday on farmersjournal.ie, the EU has cleared the way for Larry Goodman’s ABP Group to buy the Allen family share in Slaney.

The approval was given following a formal application just over a month ago. The approval was unanimous and the Commission authority disregarded the IFA’s sustained opposition.

This completes a process that began late in 2015 and the way is now clear for the parties to complete their business as soon as mutually convenient.

This is expected to be soon, but no formal commencement date has been given for when the new Linden-ABP partnership will formally begin running the Slaney business.

The deal applied to the Slaney beef operation in Bunclody, Co Wexford, and the Irish Country Meats (ICM) lamb business in Camolin, Co Wexford, and Navan, Co Meath.

Northern Ireland-based Linden Foods, part of the farmer-owned Fane Valley co-op, will continue the joint owner of the Slaney Foods group along with ABP, having previously acquired the other half of the Allen family shares. Linden’s Northern Ireland beef and lamb processing business will continue to operate separately from the joint venture with ABP to run Slaney.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that the deal will conclude in weeks rather than months. It is also understood that Slaney Foods will continue to collect the IFA levy as it is a separate entity to ABP.

The deal was strongly opposed by all the Irish farm organisations, with IFA recently publishing the report it commissioned on the competition impact for Irish farmers selling cattle.

Despite this report showing a negative effect on competition, especially for prime beef cattle in south Leinster, DG Comp approved the deal without any conditions.

IFA president Joe Healy said the serious issues around competition in the beef sector, highlighted in the PMCA report commissioned by the IFA into the ABP-Slaney deal, have not gone away and must be addressed to have a sustainable and profitable beef sector for Irish livestock farmers.

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Full coverage: ABP-Slaney deal