Builder upbeat on Irish prospects

Meath-headquartered housebuilder Abbey has expressed confidence in the Irish market and expects its UK operations to drive revenue growth next year.

The company — which does most of its business in Britain — yesterday reported a near 10% drop in annual pre-tax profits — from €12.1m to €10.9m — for the 12 months to the end of April.

Executive chairman Charles Gallagher said that while turnover is likely to remain static for the current financial year — revenue from Abbey’s core housebuilding operations jumped from €58m to €84.4m in the last year — expansion in Britain should result in a significant increase in the year to the end of Apr 2015.

Abbey completed 368 house sales last year, nearly 60 more than during the previous 12 months, 322 of which were in the UK (35 were in Ireland).

Mr Gallagher said the company is buying another 200 land plots in Britain and hopes to increase its annual number of sales to between 450 and 500 by 2015. He added that trading in the UK has been “encouraging”.

The true pre-tax profit figure was €7.4m, thanks to an impairment charge of €3.5m against property land and work in progress in its Irish and Czech divisions. Operating profit fell from €9.1m to €8.3m, but the dividend (8c per share) was unchanged.

Mr Gallagher said that Abbey will begin two housing projects in an improving Dublin market in the coming weeks. He said that “some signs of improving confidence are appearing” here.