Veris, the listed property services company formerly known as Irish Estates, has bought two property management companies for €8 million, giving it management control of some of Dublin's largest shopping centres, including Dundrum.
Under the agreement's terms, Veris will pay an initial sum of almost €7 million for Glenrye, the largest independent retail property management company in Ireland, with a further payment due later dependent on the group reaching certain targets.
In addition, Veris will pay €1.04 million for Premier Property Management, a Dublin-based provider of residential property management services.
Commenting on the acquisitions, chief executive Ross Ivers said they represented a strengthening of Veris's property management division and enhanced the overall earnings of the group.
"The businesses have an impressive client portfolio and significantly add to our ability to provide a single solution for the property management requirements of large-scale developments," he said.
Both new groups will eventually reside within Irish Estates, Veris's property management division, though Glenrye, which also manages the Square in Tallaght and Nutgrove Shopping Centre in Rathfarnham as well as the Dundrum centre, will initially be run as a separate entity.Glenrye is expected to have normalised earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) this year of €900,000, while Premier had Ebitda of €170,000 in the year to the end of June. A total of 436,649 new Veris shares will be issued as part of the payment, although these will be subject to a lock-in arrangement until at least March 2008.
Analysts welcomed the acquisitions, saying they were a very good fit with Veris's business and also appeared to represent good value.
Veris yesterday also named Martin Rafferty as head of acquisitions and John O'Donoghue as financial controller.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)