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Privatisation and the Economic Performance of Irish Sugar/Greencore

Author

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  • Donal Palcic
  • Eoin Reeves

    (Department of Economics, University of Limerick)

Abstract

As one of Ireland’s largest agri-business companies the Irish Sugar company played a key role in the country’s economic development in the twentieth century. The company was privatised in 1991 (under the new name Greencore) and has since transformed from a largely commodity-based agri-business into an international convenience food company. This paper analyses the financial and economic performance of the company before and after privatisation. It finds that the change from public to private ownership was not strongly associated with improved financial performance and productivity as the company had experienced rapid growth and improvement in the pre-privatisation period. These findings run counter to perspectives such as public choice theory that suggest a positive relationship between privatisation and company performance. Performance in the post-privatisation period was strongly influenced by greater exposure to market forces in the company’s expanding food division. It is surprising that greater competition did not translate into improved overall performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Donal Palcic & Eoin Reeves, 2013. "Privatisation and the Economic Performance of Irish Sugar/Greencore," Working Papers WP022013, University of Limerick, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2013.
    • Handle: RePEc:lim:wpaper:022013
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Keywords

    privatisation; performance; productivity; Irish Sugar; British Sugar;
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