HOUSEBUILDER ABBEY is “keenly looking” for development sites in the Dublin area and would be interested in talking to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), the group’s executive chairman said yesterday.
After the company’s annual general meeting in Dublin yesterday, Charles Gallagher said the company was “actively looking” for properties in Dublin but that the property market was “frozen”.
“Inevitably some of the land that is going to come on the market is going to be held by banks or Nama. As they take time to sort out what they want to do, things have stopped and no one wants to deal,” he said.
Mr Gallagher also said banks were not willing to lend money for speculative development, but he was confident this would improve as the economy stabilised.
Dublin- and London-listed company Abbey, which develops and sells residential housing properties in Ireland, Britain and the Czech Republic, has been significantly affected by the downturn.
In July, the group reported a loss of €54.4 million for the 12 months to April 30th, 2008, compared with a profit of €16.8 million for the previous 12 months. Shareholders heard yesterday that trading at the company had stabilised in the first few months of the year and that “good levels of business had been achieved” in southern England.
