Irish Residential Properties REIT has pushed back against an activist investor’s suggestion that it should put itself up for sale, saying the process would be “uncertain” and “disruptive for the business”.
Vision Capital Corporation, which owns a 5% stake in IRES, said the company “has increasingly become an ineffective platform and continues to poorly address the interests of both its shareholders and the critical needs of the Irish housing market”.
It will vote against the reinstatement of chairman Declan Moylan, chief financial officer Brian Fagan and remuneration committee members Joan Garahy and Tom Kavanagh at IRES’s AGM, and said there is “a distinct and significant opportunity” if the company was taken private.
IRES said it has identified more than €100m of non-core assets for disposal in the short term and will look for further assets it can sell, returning the capital to shareholders.
“The board regularly reviews all options with advisers, in line with its fiduciary duties, and reiterates that it remains open to considering all value maximising options including offers for assets or the business as a whole,” the company said.
“The board reviewed Vision’s written request in 2022 for a formal sales process alongside other value maximising options and has also reviewed this at the current time and concluded that a formal sales process, given the macro-economic challenges and regulatory backdrop, is highly unlikely to result in value maximisation for shareholders.”
It added: “The board notes that formal sales processes are uncertain, disruptive for the business and stakeholders and there is no external evidence that such a process would be successful in delivering significant upside at the current time.”
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