Laurence Goodman (born 15 September 1937) is an Irish businessman, chiefly involved in the beef processing industry.
Separately, the Goodman family office has business interests in property, healthcare and productive arable and beef farming.
[7] He was on the advisory committee for HSBC's opening of operations in Ireland in 1979, along with Dermot Nolan, Michael Carvill and Peter Hutson.
[9] In June 1980 it was announced that Goodman would invest £10m for a new meat plant in Ardee, County Louth, employing 360 people "when it reaches full production".
Goodman praised then Minister for Agriculture Austin Deasy, whose visit to Tehran "greatly facilitated the securing of the new contract".
[15] In December 1984 AIBP purchased the entire fresh meat division of Dalgety PLC, a publicly quoted UK group.
It includes the purchase of National Proteins, a by-products plant processing meat and bone meal from edible offal.
[17] On 9 March 1989 TDs Barry Desmond and Tomás Mac Giolla made a series of allegations about Goodman International in the Dáil.
[18] In a March 1989 Irish Times story, Goodman International denied the allegations made by Desmond and Mac Giolla.
On 24 August 1990, share prices on the Irish Stock Exchange fell by £400m, with some of Goodman's companies including Food Industries (in which he held a 68% stake) falling from 170p to 110p.
[23] The legislation allowed for the courts to appoint an examiner who could freeze company assets for up to 12 months – compared at the time to US Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection laws.
It claimed that the dominant position of Goodman in the Irish and British beef processing industry may not be in the best interests of consumers.
He said that the malpractices alleged during the programme in relation to stamping and weighing meat had never been carried out in a "routine fashion", and if they had taken place they had done so without his knowledge or consent.
The Tribunal began hearings on 21 June 1991 and it reported its conclusions in July 1994, at the time the Irish State's longest running inquiry.
The company also secured a contract with the JD.Com e-commerce platform to launch a range of premium Irish beef products.
[33] ABP's renewables division, Olleco, was runner up for a global environmental award at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2019.