Wind and waste to boost Treasury product portfolio

DAVID TYNDALL, chief operating officer and director of Treasury Holdings: Chief operating officer David Tyndall is reticent on Treasury's bid for Green, but tells Arthur Beesley that the company will make acquisitions where appropriate opportunities emerge

David Tyndall might have gone to Royal Ascot this week. Instead, he went to a waste management conference at Torbay. Now the rubbish business is hardly the sport of kings. But then, he didn't go for sport.

Mr Tyndall became chief operating officer and director of Treasury Holdings nine weeks ago. Not known for half-heartedness, the privately owned firm has big plans in the waste arena.

Thus did horse talk make way for refuse. It's new ground for Mr Tyndall - and for Treasury, owner of one of the biggest property portfolios in the State. But, like wind energy, refuse is an area in which the company sees plenty of growth potential.

A similar "buy and hold" or "develop and hold" strategy before the property boom helped prompt the company's rapid expansion in the 1990s. Owned by Mr John Ronan and Mr Richard Barrett, its assets are worth about €1.3 billion. Revenue and profits rates are not publicly available, but they are generally accepted to be very large. A chartered accountant, Mr Tyndall does not talk figures.

Neither would he discuss the apparent renewal of Treasury's interest in acquiring Green Property. An engagement two years ago fizzled out, although Green is again in play after a buy-out proposal by its managing director, Mr Stephen Vernon, and a separate approach by Deutsche Bank.

Still, he says Treasury would make acquisitions where appropriate opportunities emerged.

Discussions with the family of the former Taoiseach Mr Charles Haughey on the possibility of acquiring his home at Kinsealy, north Dublin, and adjoining land had reached a "full-stop", he said. No deal was agreed.

Mr Tyndall joined Treasury from the Pegasi group, where he was finance director. The group manages the extensive and varied interests of the Crown Prince of Dubai and racing magnate Sheikh Mohammed.

Aged 42 and son of a Bank of Ireland branch manager, Tyndall grew up in Tipperary, Mayo and Dublin. In his 16 years in London, he was also on the boards of the Darley horse-breeding group, the Godolphin racing organisation, and Kildangan Stud, all major players in the horse world.

Thus Tyndall is quite in tune with the demands of top-end employers. He says he returned home because the quality of life was high. In a swish converted warehouse near the Grand Canal Basin, he says he carried out his own due diligence on Treasury. He admires the capacity of Mr Ronan and Mr Barrett to anticipate the market and notes that certain initiatives are based on a close reading of EU requirements.

Attentively dedicated to the shrewd deal and a frequent giver of money to political parties, Treasury's approach has been criticised by some observers.

But Mr Tyndall says of Mr Barrett and Mr Ronan: "They're both very driven human beings. They both have the foot to the floor all the time and their skills complement each other. I believe that they are very tough but very fair.

"There are always going to be people along the way that are not going to be happy that people are successful. It's very easy to account for that as BMT - before my time. That side of things has been hugely exaggerated."

From the property perspective, Treasury's prime preoccupation is a massive 52-acre site mostly owned by CIÉ at Spencer Dock in the North Lotts in Dublin.

Treasury's arrangement with CIÉ on the project has been criticised by Government and Opposition figures, criticism that Mr Barrett recently dismissed. Mr Tyndall says: "There's an awful lot of work on the table at the moment."

He sees significant potential in residential elements of the project. The company is aiming at the luxury market, but 20 per cent of the developments will be in the social and affordable bracket, required by legislation. He says: "It's not going to be a yuppie village."

Of the office market, he says: "It's not as buoyant as it was and there's no point in saying that it isn't. But if you read what's in those agency reports it seems to be coming back." Demand would be stimulated by lower corporate taxation rates, he adds.

The company's portfolio in Britain is under review but likely to be expanded. This would lower its comparative exposure to the Irish market, location of 90 per cent of the portfolio, but he says there is no intention to sell off any Irish property.

Sheikh Mohammed's interests include a six-star hotel so Mr Tyndall is well-placed to assess the performance of Treasury's five-star site managed by the Westin group at College Green, Dublin. The business suffered after the attacks on the US last September. "As I understand it, it is just about picking up," he says. Still, there is room to increase revenues from the business: a five-star room in London without breakfast costs £335 sterling (€522) per night, whereas the equivalent Dublin rate is in the region of £160.

Mr Tyndall's visit to the Torbay conference is related to Treasury's exclusive rights to market a German-developed waste-recycling system known as Herhof in Ireland and Britain. With an investment cost of about €20 million per plant, Mr Tyndall sees the technology as the waste business equivalent of expensive cars.

Described as a "mechanical biological treatment", the process uses "bio-drying" to reduce the mass of waste before recyclables are separated. The residue, called Stabilat, is a fuel substitute that can be used in electricity generation and cement production.

While Treasury owns two wind farms, its main developmental focus is an 18-kilometre sandbank off Greystones, Co Wicklow, which it owns in a joint venture with the Norwegian firm Fred Olsen Renewables, a division of which controls the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

Citing requirements under the Kyoto protocol to reduce harmful emissions, he says the fifth Alternative Energy Requirement programme introduced last year was "not the answer to the maiden's prayer".