Irish Residential Properties REIT Plc got through a showdown at its annual general meeting, even as an activist investor continued to push for a sale of the company.
(Bloomberg) — Irish Residential Properties REIT Plc got through a showdown at its annual general meeting, even as an activist investor continued to push for a sale of the company.
All directors who stood for reelection were returned to the board, though three other resolutions were not passed by shareholders on Thursday. About 61% of votes supported the reelection of Chief Executive Officer Margaret Sweeney, while 54% were in favor of returning Chief Financial Officer Brian Fagan.
“The board is unanimous in its confidence in the management team’s ability to deliver on the company’s strategy and will continue to engage with the small number of shareholders who dissented on this matter,” I-Res said in a statement late Thursday. It also intends to propose a new remuneration policy in 2024, after just 36% of voting investors supported the current report.
Vision Capital Corp., which holds about 5% of the stock, had called for votes against some of the Irish landlord’s directors and resolutions. It believes the company should consider becoming a private entity, with the shares trading at a “significant discount” to the market value of the firm’s assets as well as to help address needs of the Irish housing market.
Vision received “substantive” support from both shareholders and institutional investors as well as local Irish property holders who see opportunities “in light of the additional imbalance in the housing market,” the firm’s President and CEO Jeffrey Olin said by telephone this week.
Olin said the investor’s next step after this AGM will be to advance an additional resolution at a further shareholder meeting to require I-Res to look at options to maximize value for shareholders. “There’s no reason for it to continue to be held in the public form.”
The board addressed a lot of the questions raised at the meeting “in a general manner” rather than specifically, Olin said following Thursday’s meeting.
Sale Process
Irish Residential has said it doesn’t believe a formal sale process is in the best interest of shareholders.
“An objective analysis of current market conditions shows in our view that there could not be a worse time to sell this company — at a time of high interest rates, high inflation and the rental cap,” Chairman Declan Moylan said at the meeting. “It would be an unwise thing to do in our view to put the company up for sale in these circumstances, particularly where the current share price sits.”
“To continue trading in a proper and organized fashion and to wait until the inevitable cyclical change comes in the European real estate market and to keep it steady as she goes until conditions improve is the right thing to do,” Moylan added.
I-Res also dismissed reports that it is in talks to sell a central Dublin property to shareholder Irish Life Investment Management and reiterated that it had complied with all of its disclosure obligations.
“We didn’t put The Marker on the market,” Sweeney said. “There is no process.”
The friction comes amid a protracted housing crisis in Ireland, particularly in the rental sector, where demand far outstrips severely squeezed supply. Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the current housing deficit amounts to about 250,000 homes due to a rising population as well as the impacts of last decade’s financial crisis.
I-Res saw revenue increase 4.9% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to a year earlier, driven by additions to its portfolio and organic growth, it said on Wednesday. The landlord reported an occupancy rate of over 99% for its properties throughout the quarter, though macroeconomic environment continues to weigh “heavily” on listed real estate company valuations, it added.
Shares of the firm have climbed about 3.8% since Vision’s initial open letter was published April 12, compared with a 0.7% gain in Ireland’s ISEQ All-Share Index.
(Updates with vote outcome and comments from board, shareholders throughout)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.