Margaret Sweeney to step down as Ires chief executive next April

Ires Reit, the largest private residential landlord in the State, has announced that chief executive Margaret Sweeney plans to retire from her role next April, after 6½ years in charge.

The decision follows an eventful 10 months at the company, which has been targeted by a Canadian activist investor and had to sell off some of its assets in order to protect its financial position amid declining property prices as interest rates rose.

Sources said Ms Sweeney had originally intended to hold the chief executive position for only five years. She decided to continue in the post for longer to maintain stability in the company after moving the day-to-day management of its portfolio in-house last year, and as it dealt with interest rate-fuelled market volatility in property stocks over the past 18 months.

“It has been a privilege to lead Ires for the past six years and I am proud of the team and portfolio that we have built. The company has transformed over the last two years, in particular, becoming a fully integrated Irish company led by an experienced team with a market-leading operating platform,” Ms Sweeney said.

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“Having served for six years as CEO, I believe that now is the right time to retire and support the transition to new leadership in 2024.”

Under Mr Sweeney’s leadership, Ires grew its portfolio by more than 60 per cent to circa 4,000 units, put in place new long-term funding structures and significantly strengthened the balance sheet, according to group chairman Declan Moylan. She has agreed to remain in the chief executive role beyond her six-month notice period, if necessary.

The company’s share price has fallen by more than 35 per cent over the same period, driven by a sell-off over the past 18 months amid rising interest rates. The stock rose 2.9 per cent on Tuesday.

Ires was forced to raise €96.5 million from asset sales – including 194 apartments in west Dublin and a development site in Sandyford – in order to convince investors that it could maintain sufficient headroom over its debt limits at a time of falling commercial property valuations. The company is restricted by Irish real-estate investment trust (reit) laws to maintain a loan-to-value ratio of not more than 50 per cent.

The disposals, reducing its portfolio to 3,734 apartments and houses, have reduced Ires’s loan-to-value ratio to 41.9 per cent from 44.6 per cent in June, Ires said in a trading update on Tuesday.

Moves by the group over the past 12 months to fix rates on most of its debt and pay back some of its most costly borrowings leaves it with a blended interest rate of 3.27 per cent. The group’s weighted average interest rate in 2021 was 2.3 per cent.

The company, which earlier this year fought off calls from a Canadian activist investor, Vision Capital, to put itself up for sale as its stock trades at a discount to its intrinsic value, said that it “remains focused on delivering on its value maximising portfolio management and disciplined capital allocation strategy”.

Ires added that it would “continue to review opportunities to selectively dispose” of assets where value for shareholders could be delivered.

Occupancy has remained strong across the group’s portfolio, at 99.6 per cent as of the end of September.

Ms Sweeney joined the board of Bank of Ireland as a non-executive director at the start of last month. The bank disclosed on Tuesday that the new director spent €43,550 on the stock market buying 5,000 shares in it late last week.