Fyffes's shareholders have had little to cheer about in the four years since Dole Foods pulled out of a £420 million bid for the Irish company. Dole withdrew when the Fyffes's board refused to back the 115p per share from the American foods giant. Since then, however, the Fyffes's share has gone nowhere trading as low as 89p before hitting 117p in this week's trading.

Whether next Monday's results from Fyffes will kickstart the share price remains to be seen, with the company's own broker Davy forecasting a marginal fall in profits to £46.3 million although earnings per share are forecast to move ahead slightly to 9.1p. It will prob ably take a substantial improvement on those forecasts if the share price is to benefit.

In the current half-year, Fyffes should benefit from firmer fruit prices, but in the longer term progress will largely depend on the outcome of the dispute between EU and North American banana producers over access to European markets.

A final resolution to this dispute would remove a large part of the uncertainty which has depressed the Fyffes's share price and increased overseas investor interest in the stock. It would also give Fyffes the opportunity to invest its cash hoard expected to be £94 million at the end of 1998, says Davy.