Irish pay €2.39bn for British property

IRISH investors have pumped €2.39 billion into non-residential property in Britain in the first six months of the year.

Yesterday, property consultants CB Richard Ellis Gunne said their latest figures for Irish investment spend on British commercial property over the last 12 months hit €1.26bn.

When the €1.13bn Savoy Group hotel transaction, completed by Irish investors recently, is taken into account, Irish investment in the first six months of 2004 has reached €2.39bn.

CB Richard Ellis Gunne director of research Marie Hunt said: “These figures are exactly in line with our forecasts. Since the beginning of the year, we have been forecasting overall investment, excluding hotel transactions, of over €2.5bn in the British market by Irish investors in 2004.

“This represents a fourfold increase in investment spend in the British market since 2000. This demand is driven by the availability of good quality investment product in Britain against a severe lack of product in Ireland,” he said.

Retail property purchases have made up 51% of the Irish investment spend in Britain this year.

“A further 35% has been invested in office property, with 12% comprising mixed retail/office investments and the remaining 2% invested in industrial and leisure property,” said Ms Hunt.

“In the first six months of 2004, 42% of all Irish investment purchases were transactions of less than €10m. 29% ranged between €10m-€20m while 17% comprised investment transactions with a value of €20m-€50m,” the authors said.

Irish investors have disposed of approximately €200m of British investment product in the last six months as they rebalanced their portfolios.