Glenveagh Properties to buy back further €100m of shares after dockland sales

Housebuilder Glenveagh Properties said on Tuesday it plans to buy back a further €100 million of shares, after completing the sale of a 4.6-acre residential and hotel site at Castleforbes Business Park in Dublin's docklands.

Shares in the company rose by as much as 6.4 per cent on Euronext Dublin.

The planned share repurchase programme follows on from the group having completed its first share buyback scheme last month, under which shares to the value of €75 million were acquired on the market for cancellation.

Glenveagh, which floated on the Irish stock market four years ago, announced in late August that it had agreed to sell the the residential and hotel site at Castleforbes for €78.5 million to Eagle Street Partners Group, a property investment fund set up by former Glenveagh Properties co-founder Justin Bickle and former executive Shane Scully.

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Hotel sale

The deal followed on from the group selling the planned 262-bed Premier Inn hotel in Castleforbes to German asset manager Union Investment through a forward fund arrangement.

The overall Castleforbes site in the Dublin docklands was purchased by Glenveagh in 2018 and following extensive master planning, designing, and place-making, the site now consists of two hotels, an office of 120,000 sq ft and 700 residential units.

Glenveagh, led by chief executive Stephen Garvey, said in August that it has sold, signed, or reserved all the 1,150 homes that it expects to deliver in 2021.

Sitting on a landbank that has capacity for 16,600 units, Glenveagh plans to hike annual output to 3,000 units by 2024.

Goodbody Stockbrokers analyst Dudley Shanley said that the share buyback news was positive for investors in the housebuilder, as it has clearly identified €100 million of excess capital even after investing about €70 million in land so far this year, as well as committing money to a second facility to construct timber frame houses.

“We had forecast a second €75 million buyback in 2023 so this buyback is earlier than we had anticipated, and the quantum is higher,” he said.