Housebuilder Abbey’s chairman Charles Gallagher and his family have increased their stake in the cash-rich company to 81.3 per cent after buying shares in the market on Friday.
The family’s Gallagher Holdings investment vehicle, which made a mandatory takeover bid for the entire company in 2012 after breaching the 50 per cent market, spent over £12 million (€13.9m) acquiring almost 1 million shares in the market at £12.20 each, according to a stock exchange filing.
The move increases the Gallaghers’ investment in Abbey, which has a market valuation of €302.4 million, from 76.7 per cent previously.
The value of Abbey, which held €70.1 million of cash and €11.2 million of UK government debt on its balance sheet at the end of October, has more than doubled since Gallagher Holdings make a €145 million takeover bid 4½ years ago. The offer period ended in September 2012, with the family owning almost 73 per cent of the company.
The Gallaghers have since bought further shares on occasion, most recently, buying about €4.5 million of the company’s stock just before Christmas. A spokeswoman was not in a position to comment on whether the family had plans to acquire more stock.
The Irish-based company’s core housebuilding division completed 219 house sales in the UK in the six months to the end of October, 15 homes in Ireland and a further 18 in the Czech Republic, delivering almost €78 million in sales and €19.6 million in operating profit.
While the company described UK trading as “satisfactory” during the period, it said “a steady pick-up in activity is now in prospect” in Ireland, helped by easier credit conditions for first-time buyers.
The comments followed the announcement by the Government of a help-to-buy scheme for first-time buyers in the budget, and the Central Bank’s subsequent move to ease lending restrictions for the same category.
Irish residential property prices rose at an annual rate of 8.6 per cent in November, according to the latest data from the Central Statistics Office, with economist at Davy predicting that they will surge by at least a further 8 per cent this year.
Prices in the UK increased at an average 7.2 per cent last year, according to property research firm Hometrack.
