REIT raises €200m in market listing

Irish Residential Property REIT has raised €200 million in a stockmarket listing, meeting its target as it became the third such real estate investment trust to launch in Ireland in the last year.

It follows Green REIT and Hibernia REIT to the Irish market after the Government made changes to permit the establishment of REITs, which allow investors to own property via a company rather than being direct landlords.

Irish property prices are rising again, after plunging by around 50%.

US asset manager Franklin Templeton, which made one of the canniest trades in Europe’s debt crisis in buying Irish debt before the country started to recover, made a corner stone investment in Irish Residential Property REIT, it said in a statement yesterday.

Templeton put in €25m and was joined by Toronto-listed CAPREIT, which invested €40m. Ireland’s largest life assurance company, Irish Life Assurance plc, invested €24.2m and New York investment trust Fir Tree Partners €30m, Irish Residential Property REIT said.

Templeton also holds 7.5% of Green REIT.

“The company intends to use the funds raised to acquire a strong portfolio of multi-unit residential properties in Dublin and the other major urban centres,” Irish Residential Property REIT IRPR chief executive David Ehrlich said.

It has a portfolio of 338 residential units in the greater Dublin area valued at €45.5m.

Irish house prices rose by 0.1% month-on-month in February and were 8.1% higher than a year earlier.

Reuters