{"id":455338,"date":"2026-04-26T23:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T23:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/455338\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T23:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T23:07:15","slug":"primark-split-marks-end-of-ab-foods-odd-marriage-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/455338\/","title":{"rendered":"Primark split marks end of AB Foods odd marriage \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/associated-british-foods\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/associated-british-foods\">AB Foods<\/a> is finally unpicking one of the market\u2019s unlikelier corporate combinations. The group is to separate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/primark\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/primark\">Primark<\/a> \u2013 Penneys, to everyone in Ireland \u2013 from its food businesses in a long-signalled demerger. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Expected to complete by the end of 2027, it will leave investors with two FTSE 100 companies \u2013 one fashion operation and one food portfolio spanning everything from tea to bread and sugar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The logic is simple. Conglomerates tend to trade at a discount and sceptics have long said AB Foods\u2019 mix risks diluting management focus across very different businesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In particular, many analysts see potential for a Primark valuation re-rating, with bullish observers saying a stand-alone operation could command a valuation multiple that is closer to H&amp;M (it trades on eight times Ebitda) or even Next (11).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Perhaps, but such arguments have been doing the rounds since November\u2019s announcement that AB Foods was reviewing its group structure, only for the company\u2019s market value to fall from \u00a316 billion (\u20ac18.45 billion) to below \u00a313 billion. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Share price weakness reflects an unforgiving backdrop, with AB Foods just reporting an 18 per cent fall in operating profit and weaker European trading at Primark, which is battling fierce competition from online rivals such as Shein and Temu.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">And financial backdrop aside, not everyone is convinced about the demerger. Quilter Cheviot\u2019s Chris Beckett called it \u201cmore about structure than strategy\u201d. Retail analyst Richard Hyman was blunter, saying he still did \u201cnot really understand the rationale\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The obvious counterpoint is that Primark would benefit from undivided management attention and a board focused solely on retail execution \u2013 essentially, fewer discussions about sugar and more about shopping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AB Foods is finally unpicking one of the market\u2019s unlikelier corporate combinations. The group is to separate Primark&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[97539,79,18,19,17,55204,7769],"class_list":["post-455338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-associated-british-foods","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-penneys","tag-primark"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116473524820302625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}