House builder reports ‘reasonable’ trading

Housebuilding group Abbey has said it has seen progress in all parts of its business during the first half of its current financial year, including a small improvement in the Irish market.

Addressing shareholders at the company’s AGM in Malahide yesterday, chairman, Charles Gallagher said progress “continues to be made” and that trading in the early months of the year had been “reasonable”.

He said the company was “on track for a satisfactory outcome this year”.

The financial year for the Co Meath-headquartered company runs up to the end of April.

Mr Gallagher said some improvement has been noticeable in Ireland, with the company completing some builds.

Asked after yesterday’s meeting, if he thinks the Irish housing market is now set to pick-up, Mr Gallagher said he was always “very nervous about forecasting anything”, but would be less pessimistic than the Central Bank — which said, earlier in the week, that it could take anywhere between seven and 18 years for the property market to totally recover.

Overall, Ireland’s economic prospects are “quite good”, he said. “It depends on what you mean by ‘recovery’. A healthy two-way market is what we want; not necessarily a return to pre-bust high prices.”

Yesterday’s meeting came a month after the failure of a mandatory offer for Abbey by its largest shareholder, Gallagher Holdings — the investment vehicle controlled by Mr Gallagher and other members of his family.

By upping its stake in the group to 51.6%, Gallagher Holdings had been forced to make a takeover bid for Abbey.

However, with shareholder acceptances falling well short of the 90% approval rate, the bid failed; but Gallagher Holdings’ stake rose to around 73%.

Mr Gallagher said that management remains happy with Abbey staying in public ownership — albeit with one dominant shareholder — and is “not the least bit disappointed” that the mandatory offer was not accepted.

“Public listings are valuable and are not to be discarded naturally. There is no drive to take the business private,” he said.

Tackled by one shareholder about the company’s dividend policy — Abbey is paying shareholders 8c per share for 2012 — Mr Gallagher said management is “very conscious of our duties to all shareholders” and that the company is “committed to a progressive dividend policy, and that won’t change”.