Листинг компании GDL в Дублине не спасает биржу от оттока акций

The surprise flotation of a property investment company in Dublin on Monday has yet to deliver the boost Euronext Dublin has been seeking, as companies continue to quit its main and growth markets. GDL Management Group, a real-estate investment trust ( Reit ) led by former racehorse trainer Kahlil de Burca, whose business career has had its share of successes and setbacks, floated at an initial share price of €134.50, giving it a market value of €134.5 million. The listing prompted head-scratching among the remaining members of Ireland’s diminished stockbroking community, normally in the loop on flotations – and at least one local firm directly involved. GDL used Paris-based financial services firm TP ICAP (Europe) as its listing agent. As of Friday, not one share in the company had changed hands on the market, according to Euronext Dublin’s website. De Burca – a native of Co Kildare – told The Irish Times that the flotation at this time was merely to comply with Irish Reit rules, which require any trust being set up to float within three years. GDL elected to become a Reit in 2023. READ MORE “We weren’t floating to raise money,” he said, adding that he expects trading in the stock to commence in time once the market becomes more familiar with the company. It may take time for GDL – where shares potentially available for trading, known as the free float, account for 22 per cent of total stock – to deliver any boost to trading in Dublin. GDL’s key flotation document – or prospectus – shows that it is mainly invested in social housing and homes of borrowers who availed of the Government-overseen mortgage-to-rent scheme to deal with unsustainable loans. The mortgage-to-rent element comes from its purchase, completed in January according to de Burca, of Fresh Start Homes, one of four groups selected in 2024 to offer such solutions in the market. GDL also owns a hotel in Galway and a mixed-use building in the same city. The document says that it has also exchanged contracts to buy car parks in Nottingham and Cardiff as well as offices in Derry and Edinburgh. But the prize assets driving the market capitalisation are residential development sites in Carlow and Tullamore acquired in April that have since seen stunning valuation uplifts. The site on the outskirts of Carlow town, which has planning permission for 113 houses and 18 duplexes, was acquired for €2.47 million, settled by way of shares in GDL. The company’s valuer, HPS Real Estate, has since put a gross development value of €51.9 million – basically an estimated market value of the development once it has been fully completed. Deducting €32.7 million of development funding results in a net equity valuation on the scheme of €19.1 million – resulting in a paper gain of about 670 per cent in less than five months. The Tullamore acquisition seems to have been an even better deal. The purchase of the so-called Hayfield Development, with planning for 185 units, was closed in April and priced at €3.67 million, again with new shares in GDL used to cover the payment. It has been given a gross development value of €71.6 million and net value of €28.8 million, which excludes development loans. That equates to an uplift of 685 per cent. The prospectus cautions, however, that as of August 25th, the latest practicable date used for the document, “no main contractor has been appointed in respect of either development, and construction costs for both schemes remain in the pricing and tendering stage”. [  Data gives optimistic view of Irish housing sector that few want to hear Opens in new window  ] De Burca said that GDL plans to hold on to social housing units built under the developments and sell the remainder. De Burca, who owns 10 per cent of the business, has a background in corporate finance in the UK and had been involved in deals including a social housing portfolio sale and the acquisition of a data centre as well as playing an advisory role to the National Asset Management Agency on UK transactions, according to the document. It gives no mention of his career in the bloodstock world, including what appears to have been a particularly successful period as a racehorse trainer based in Sweden from about 2019. He had also previously trained in the UK. While there, de Burca – then known as Kahlil Burke – was disqualified as a trainer by the British Horseracing Authority in November 2009 for a period for certain breaches of its rules of racing. He is also listed by the London Gazette as having been the subject of a bankruptcy order in England in 2008 (as Burke) and in 2016 (as de Burca). It is understood that these were disclosed to the company’s advisers. They did not need to be in the prospectus as they predated the five-year disclosure requirement GDL’s anchor investor is a Kuwaiti family office, Al Ritaj Investment Company, through an Irish investment vehicle called FBD Securities. It has nothing to do with FBD Insurance. The Kuwaitis originally gave GDL a €49.5 million loan three years ago but converted it into a 10 per cent equity stake in the company in March. The prospectus acknowledges that the size of the shareholder does not correlate to the amount the Middle Eastern investors have invested but is designed to adhere to “provisions relating to holdings of 10 per cent or more of the share capital or voting rights of an Irish Reit”. [  How ICG’s push to close €1.2bn buyout in August’s holiday lull backfired Opens in new window  ] De Burca’s mother, Marian Bourke, is a fellow executive director and 10 per cent shareholder, while his stepbrother, Aaron Anderson, holds a similar stake. “GDL Management Group Plc is headquartered in Ireland, with our executive management team based locally, and we are proud to strengthen Euronext’s presence in the Irish market as a new entrant,” chairman Donal Boylan said on Friday. GDL’s listing brings the total number of stocks on Dublin’s main and growth markets to 23. With Iseq 20 members PTSB and Irish Continental Group currently the subject of takeover bids, Donegal Investment Group on track to delist in the coming months and Malin Corporation in wind-down, Euronext Dublin will soon be in desperate need of fresh blood to fill out index. GDL may technically have a seat at the table but until its shares start trading, it is hard to see it filling any gap.