Maurice Harte obviously likes to have familiar faces around him. The former AIB Investment Managers (AIBIM) boss was brought in as managing director of Treasury by Johnnie Ronan and Richard Barrett in May, a move that was seen in property circles as releasing the dynamic duo for a more strategic planning role, with Harte running Treasury's day-today operations.

Now Harte has brought in one of his AIBIM sidekicks to beef up Treasury's property investment activities, with John Bruder giving up his job as AIBIM's head of property, where he handled an Irish and British property book with assets of around £500 million (€634 million).

Often, beefing up management teams with high-profile appointments is seen as a precursor to taking a company public. But few in the industry believe that Ronan and Barrett have any intention of taking Treasury plc down that road, given the horrendous treatment that the stock market has given to Irish property companies.

With both Green and Dunloe Ewart almost certain to be taken private by managements, and with Charlie Gallagher being tipped by many to do likewise with Abbey, there seems little reason for Ronan and Barrett to subject themselves, not just to the disclosure requirements that being a plc involves, but also the sort of discount to net asset value that the stock market inflicts on a property company.