Green Property will now look at various options that might provide more value for its shareholders, following the decision of its management team to abandon a planned management buyout of the property group.

But Green shares fell back sharply - to #6.58 from #7 - on news that the MBO plan had been abandoned. The shares are now back at the level they were at in June - when the company first indicated that it might be taken private - and well off the level they reached when the MBO plan was disclosed in early August.

Speaking for the first time since the four-strong group he headed first went public with the planned buyout, Green chief executive Mr Stephen Vernon said: "We decided to look at an MBO as a way to provide more value to shareholders. For two years, our share price was stuck at #5.50 even though our net asset value had shot up.

"We talked to a number of capital providers and to one provider in detail. But we decided that the price we could have done it at was not one I would have been comfortable with, therefore it was not the best way to go."

Mr Vernon would not comment further on the MBO proposal, but market sources believe the MBO group felt it would not be able to offer a price which the independent directors could back.

Mr Vernon declined to speculate on the alternatives now open to Green if it is to succeed in providing more value to shareholders.

Like most small property companies, Green is trading at a 30 per cent discount to its net asset value.

Mr Vernon has previously said Green was not big enough to be picked up by the major European institutional investors, has been ignored by euro zone focused Irish institutions and is lumped in `'with the rest" by British institutions.

Market sources believe Green may consider a share buyback programme, a mechanism that has been used by several Irish firms. The group might also consider adopting a more generous dividend policy than in recent years when gross dividend yield was less than 1 per cent.

It could also, in effect, put itself on the market by looking for a trade buyer or a financial investors who might buy Green and leave the management in place to run the company.

Less likely is a separation of the Irish and British property portfolios into separate companies and even less likely is a liquidation of the group's assets and the proceeds distributed to shareholders.