IRISH LIFE PAYS €35m FOR DUBLIN OFFICE BLOCK IT SOLD FOR OVER €100m - Irish Life has bought back Hume House in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, for €35 million - 10 years after it sold the office building for more than €100 million.
The renewed interest in the high rise block on Pembroke Road stems from its redevelopment potential and its pivotal location next to the major new mixed-use urban centre being developed by the Comer Group and a consortium headed by Joe O’Reilly’s Chartered Land. Irish Life previously owned Hume House from the 1970s until 2006, when it sold it to developer Seán Dunne for more than €100 million as part of a larger transaction, says the Irish Times. At that time Mr Dunne was involved in a major site-assembly programme in Ballsbridge which collapsed when the property market crashed. As a result, Hume House and a number of other distressed assets belonging to Mr Dunne were sold in 2014 by the National Asset Management Agency as part of the Platinum portfolio and bought by the US private equity firm Blackstone. Just over a year later it flipped two of the office buildings and announced plans to sell Hume House at an expected price of more than €40 million. A London-based investment company had apparently been in advanced discussions in early summer with selling agent Johnny Horgan of CBRE to buy the property but suddenly and unexpectedly withdrew after the Brexit vote.
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PREMIUMS SET TO RISE FURTHER AS INSURERS' MOTOR LOSSES TOTAL €273m - Motorists are likely to be hit with further insurance price hikes over the coming months after the country’s insurers made a combined loss of more than €273m last year. The multi-million euro losses are a further illustration of the ill-health of the sector which has come under greater scrutiny in recent months. Earlier this month, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) launched a probe into anti-competitive practices in the motor insurance sector, writes the Irish Examiner. The investigation centres on potential price signalling by firms whereby competitors flag upcoming price hikes which can be followed by other insurers. "Statements by senior industry players have raised serious suspicion as to whether there is a link between these messages and subsequent price increases. "The evidence collected through both the witness summonses and the information requests will assist us in establishing whether there has been a breach of competition law," CCPC chairperson Isolde Goggin said as she launched the probe. Motor insurance premiums have surged more than 60% higher in the past two years.
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SPAR UNIT RINGS UP 7.9M LOSS ON INTEREST - A company that collects franchise payments from over 100 Spar shops posted a €7.9m loss in its 2015 financial year, and its net debt edged higher to €14.4m.
Triode Newhill Acquisitions (TNA) provides management services to Spar outlets and is ultimately owned by BWG. In 2014, Spar South Africa acquired an 80% stake in BWG for €55m. Accounts just filed for TNA show that it generated €39.5m in revenue in the 12 months to the end of September last year. The previous accounting period was for nine-month window, and is not comparable. The latest filings reveal that TNA - which employs nearly 300 staff - posted a €789,000 operating loss in the 2015 financial year, but that a €7m interest bill put it deeper into the red, says the Irish Independent. The company had a shareholders' deficit of €148.3m at the end of the accounting period, and notes that it has a letter from another company undertaking to provide financial support to TNA for a period of not less than 12 months. TNA's revenue for the period included franchise fees of €8.5m, and €28.9m from the distribution of product. Despite the losses racked up by the firm, Spar South Africa pointed out that during the 2015 financial year, BWG had actually performed well overall.
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LUXURY HOUSEBUILDERS CUT ROOMS WITH A VIEW TO BEATING STAMP DUTY THRESHOLDS - Thousands of new luxury apartments are appearing in central London in the city’s latest building boom - but some will now be less palatial than originally planned.
Developers are going back to their drawing boards to replace large homes with higher numbers of smaller, less expensive flats after increases in stamp duty sent the top of the market into decline, writes the Financial Times. The latest example is the New Scotland Yard site in Westminster, where the Abu Dhabi-backed developers are in talks with planners to increase the number of apartments and cut their size. "There is a wider trend in prime London to reduce unit sizes," said Mark Farmer, chief executive of Cast, a real estate and construction consultancy. He said changes made by former chancellor George Osborne, which increased the tax on expensive homes while reducing it for those below £925,000, were partly to blame. "The key trigger point, I would say, is the £925,000 stamp duty threshold, where rates step up from 5 to 10%, or from 8 to 13% if you are an investor.” These new rates, which came into force in 2014, have been blamed in part for a slowdown in the luxury new-build market.
