Green Property, owner of the Blanchardstown shopping centre, plans a return to the UK development market following a near three-year absence by creating a new British subsidiary to build offices in southeast England.

Chief executive Stephen Vernon said Green, which formally exited the British market in November 2003 after going private the previous year, had teamed up with two former directors of Green Property's old British business for its latest foray into the UK.

"There are clear signs of growing occupier confidence and a lot of investor money being targeted at the office development market," said Michael Tapp, a former UK Green Property director.

Mr Tapp, Mr Vernon and Tom Leader led Green Property's UK development spree in the 1990s, when the company completed more than two million sq ft of commercial development with an end value of £300 million (€435.4 million). Its office schemes included 140,000 sq ft at Parkview Brentford and it also built industrial developments such as Trafford Park in Manchester.

"I have been looking for a route back into the UK market, but don't see much value in most of the investment stock being traded at present," Mr Vernon said. "The development route gives us an ideal opportunity to build up our assets in the UK."

Green Property was delisted from the Irish stock exchange about four years ago after Mr Vernon took it private with Bank of Scotland and investment bank Merrill Lynch. In September 2004, Merrill Lynch sold nearly all of its interest in former plc to the company's management, leaving Green Property and Bank of Scotland, with joint control of its €1 billion portfolio of Irish assets.

The property company completed a €710 million refinancing of its property portfolio in March 2004, allowing it to pay off almost all the money borrowed to finance the 2002 management buyout of the group.