Former Dragon's Den investor, presidential hopeful and telecoms entrepreneur Sean Gallagher's company, Clyde Real Estate, is to ramp up its investment activity following the agreement of a €20 million debt facility from UK-based real estate asset manager, PMM Group.
The loan will be used to part finance Clyde’s acquisition of mixed-use office and manufacturing sites in Dublin, Shannon, Dundalk and Carlow, as well as a significant office and residential development site in Cork.
Established in 2015, Clyde Real Estate's current tenants include a mix of Irish businesses as well as global blue-chip firms such as Intel, Nokia and Citibank.
In 2018, the company completed the sale of a significant portion of the manufacturing space and eight acres of the former Alcatel Lucent facility in Blanchardstown, Dublin 15 to Equinix. While the US data centre specialist has since secured planning permission for a new development, Clyde Real Estate retains ownership of the remaining manufacturing and office space at the now-rebranded Clyde House.
With more than £750 million (€892m) of assets across Ireland, the UK and Germany, PMM meanwhile provides a range of real estate investment opportunities to global investors. Since its inception in 2017 the fund has loaned over €120 million across the UK and Ireland.
Finance
Commenting on the fund’s first transaction with Clyde Real Estate, PMM’s head of real estate finance, Gareth Williams, said: “We are pleased to be able to support Clyde Real Estate, one of Ireland’s leading real estate investors, as we continue to grow our portfolio of high-quality loans. We are delighted to support not only their current asset mix but their overall strategy.”
Gallagher, chief executive and founder of Clyde Real Estate added: “We are pleased to have partnered with PMM on this tailored debt facility which will support our ongoing objective of acquiring and developing additional commercial and residential sites throughout the country.
"Over the past five years our strategy has been to acquire and asset manage a number of significant properties both in suburban Dublin and Cork as well as in major regional locations. We have also been successful in divesting a number of key assets to a mix of international data centre companies and global investment funds including Equinix, (US), Corum (France), Keppel Data Centre Reit (Singapore), K2 Data Centres (part of the Kuok Group in Singapore) and Fine Grain Property (Ireland and Singapore). "
