Goodman's meat empire stretches from Ireland to Poland

Goodman’s meat business is Europe’s largest single exporter of beef

Larry Goodman not only owns Europe’s biggest beef exporter, but also has interests that include farming, private hospitals and property.

Goodman himself is estimated to have a personal wealth of €745 million and he is a director and shareholder of around 40 different companies in the Republic.

Annual turnover across his Ardee-headquartered ABP Food Group is €2.5 billion. In recent years, it has grown steadily rather than dramatically, mainly outside Ireland, and is reckoned to have profits of €80 million. It employs 2,500 people in the Republic and 8,000 in total in Britain, Holland and Poland.

Chilled beef products, sold to consumers and restaurants, are the group’s biggest business. It has a convenience foods element, represented by Silvercrest in the Republic, which accounts for 2 per cent of ABP overall, and a number of operations in Britain, which make sausages, burgers and even soya products.

His Irish meat empire is Europe’s largest single exporter of beef. It slaughters one in every four cattle killed for meat in the Republic every year. Its UK arm is responsible for 10 per cent of that jurisdiction’s beef kill.

On the basis of a national kill of 1.4 million in 2012, its plants slaughtered 350,000 head of cattle in the Republic last year. According to the latest UK figures, a 10 per cent share would have equated to 71,000 head in the last quarter of 2012.

In the Republic, his slaughtering plants are headed by its facility in Cahir, Co Tipperary, which is described as the jewel in the operation’s crown. Cahir is also the site of one of two rendering plants, which process animal carcasses to make proteins and other byproducts, such as pet foods and biofuels.

The other slaughtering locations are in Bandon, Clones, Nenagh, Rathkeale and Waterford, which is home to a second rendering plant. Its pet foods division, CD, is located in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, and has a division in Irjmuden in Holland and Driffield in Yorkshire.

The Farmers’ Journal estimates that around 50 million Europeans buy ABP products every week.

Goodman is the organisation’s executive chairman. His two sons, Laurence and Mark, are full-time executives. Paul Finnerty is chief executive.

His and his family’s non-agrifood interests are held through companies headed by Parma Investments, which has Irish- and British-registered entities.

Through this vehicle he has backed a number of private hospitals run by James Sheahan. This includes a 28 per cent stake in the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin. He also has a 40 per cent stake in the Galway Clinic.Goodman’s third interest in this sphere is a third share in Dublin’s Hermitage Clinic.

Last December, Parma bought Bank of Ireland’s old headquarters on Baggot Street in Dublin out of receivership for €43 million.

Parma also owns the Setanta Centre in Nassau Street in Dublin and has a portfolio of sovereign bonds, shares and other tradable assets.

Finally, Goodman farms 700 acres at his home, Braganstown House in Co Louth, which is also home to 900 head of cattle which are, not surprisingly, reared for beef.