Glenveagh shareholders back plan to boost cash for investor returns by €700m

House builder Glenveagh Properties will shortly ask the High Court to allow it boost the cash it holds for distribution to shareholders by €700 million.

Holders of all Glenveagh’s 600 million shares backed a proposal, at an extraordinary general meeting on Tuesday, allowing the company transfer €700 million to distributable reserves, making the money available to return to investors.

Glenveagh must also ask the High Court to approve the transaction. Chairman John Mulcahy indicated at the meeting that the company could do so in January, but noted that it had up to six months to do this.

The company must get the court’s approval as it wants to cancel €700 million from its share premium account, from where cash cannot be distributed, before transferring it to distributable reserves.

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“The board has not made any decision as to the type of dividend we will issue and when,” Mr Mulcahy told the meeting. “As soon as we have made any decision we will make that announcement.”

Glenveagh’s formal notice of the meeting says that there are no current plans to distribute cash to shareholders.

However, the notice points out that the flexibility that the resolution gives the company is consistent with its “intention to implement a longer-term capital returns policy in due course”.

Glenveagh raised €764 million from backers through an initial sale of its shares on the Irish Stock Exchange in 2017 and by issuing further stock the following year.

The company is building 11,000 homes in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway. It recently sold an apartment block in Dundrum, on the capital's southside, to German investor Realis.

Rival Cairn Homes returned €45 million to investors in the autumn through dividends and buying back shares .

Early this year, Cairn also got shareholder and High Court approval to move €550 million to its distributable reserves.