UK asset manager Gresham House has acquired Burlington Real Estate, which has €350 million of property assets under management, for an initial consideration of €1.8 million.
Dublin-based Burlington Real Estate was established in 2012 by John Bruder and Niall Kavanagh, both former executives of Treasury Holdings, which was seized by its creditors the same year as the property bubble burst. Burlington took on the management of some of Treasury's former assets at the time.
Gresham purchased Irish investment group Appian Asset Management in late 2020 in a deal worth as much as €10 million, and rebranded the business as Gresham House Ireland.
Burlington Real Estate has had a strategic partnership with Gresham House Ireland for more than five years, as investment adviser to the Appian Burlington Property Fund, which invests in office, retail and industrial properties in the greater Dublin area and regional urban centres.
The Burlington Real Estate deal increases the level of assets under management and advice at Gresham House in Ireland about €750 million, based on figures as of the end of December. The 14-strong Burlington Real Estate team have transferred as part of the deal.
Shares
"Having worked closely with John and the team at Burlington Real Estate for over five years in their capacity as adviser to our property fund, we see a strong cultural fit with the Gresham House Group and our ambitions in Ireland," said Patrick Lawless, managing director of Gresham House Ireland.
The sellers have agreed to reinvest the equivalent of about a third of the €1.8 million initial consideration by buying shares in London-listed Gresham House at a price of £8.42 each (€10.03).
The price is higher than the £8.16 level at which shares in the company were trading on the market on Tuesday afternoon.
The sale comes more than four years after Burlington Real Estate scrapped plans to float a real-estate trust on the Irish stock exchange, having been beaten to the market by a number of other property companies as the property market began to recover following the crash.
