Bank of Ireland's Munster HQ comes up for sale

32 South Mall on the market for €13.5m

32 South Mall is leased to Bank of Ireland on a 25-year lease.

The chance to be a landlord to Bank of Ireland at its Munster HQ has come along, via a €13.5m property investment sale.

In return, the new owner of 32 South Mall, in the financial heart of Cork’s city centre, will get a rental income of €864,000 a year, every year, for the next ten years under the terms of a current lease.

Owned by a private investor, the Munster HQ building is now just one of two Bank of Ireland branches left in operation in the city centre, with the other at 70St Patrick’s Street, plus there’s a branch in the UCC campus.

The five-storey corner South Mall building with retail banking hall and four floors of offices overhead was built in the 1960s and got a multimillion-euro upgrade in 2008.

It goes to the investment market this week with agents Cohalan Downing and Colliers, who describe the 26,000sq ft corner building — which directly faces rival bank AIB’s Munster HQ at 66 South Mall — as “a trophy asset”.

At the stated €13.5m guide, the financial return will be in the order of 5.82% after costs — multiples of what might typically be available on bank deposit, and even more lucrative at a time of negative interest rates, when a bank will charge you to securely hold your money.

This bricks and mortar investment is leased to the governor of the company of the Bank of Ireland on a 25-year FRI lease, from 2007, so there are 10.37 years left to run on the lease which also has upward only five-yearly rent reviews.

The joint selling agents predict interest from local, private and institutional investors in the bank’s Munster HQ.