Abbey ‘on the search for new projects’

Abbey, the housebuilding group based in Co Meath, has stated that trading in the early months of its current financial year has been good, with activity across each of its regions ahead on an annualised basis.

Addressing shareholders yesterday at the company’s AGM in Malahide, Co Dublin, group executive chairman Charles Gallagher said that the British government’s ‘Help to Buy’ scheme for buyers continues to underpin sales in the south of England; while in Ireland, the firm’s new development in Lucan, Co Dublin, is under way.

“We continue to look actively for new projects and have recently acquired sites in Foxrock and Cornelscourt, in Co Dublin,” Mr Gallagher added.

In July, Abbey — which operates in Ireland, Britain and the Czech Republic — posted a 113% jump in annual profits, for the 12 months to the end of April, to €24.1m.

Significantly, the figures showed the group’s Irish operations turned a profit for the first time in four years.

In Ireland, the firm generated an operating profit — the first since 2010 — of €439,000 last year.

The majority of Abbey’s 390 house sales, last year, were carried out in the UK. But each of its geographical divisions returned to profit in the year and management harbours high hopes for sustained recovery, particularly in its home market.

Earlier in the summer, Mr Gallagher told the Irish Examiner Abbey hopes to up its Irish unit sales to around 100 in the medium-term. That number was at 22 last year.

Abbey’s management also believes the Irish market could reach a sustainable level of 15,000 to 20,000 new house builds per year within the next five years, up from a current level of around 8,000.