Veris strategic review update due

COMMERCIAL property management group Veris is due to provide an update on its strategic review and future ownership at its annual general meeting next month.

The group – which owns the Irish Estates property management company and Vector facilities management brand here – has been reviewing its cost structure and mulling over a number of unsolicited takeover approaches for a number of months and said yesterday that the process is still ongoing, but that further details would be made available in late August.

Veris sold its logistics and storage/removals division – which included brands such as Nat Ross, Beverly Smyth and Oman Transport – in April.

Adding to the current uncertainty, the group announced a number of significant management changes yesterday – the most prominent being the impending resignation of chief executive Bernard Farrell. He will step down from the role – after two years in charge – at the end of this month. He will remain as a non-executive director of the group until the review is concluded.

In addition, Veris’s chief financial officer and company secretary, John O’Donoghue, has resigned but will remain until the end of October.

Declan Cassidy has been appointed company secretary and Niall McFadden will head the group as executive chairman.

The group has also said its head office in Sandyford in south Co Dublin will be closed “in due course”.

However, Mr Farrell said that Veris is now in a position to focus solely on its core facilities management division, “which is an outstanding business”.