Dunloe House chairman Mr Noel Smyth has warned that if his company's bid for Belfast property group Ewart fails then he will sell his entire 26 per cent stake in the Northern Ireland operation. "If I don't get to the stage where I can get the company [Ewart] by the scruff of the neck and bring it along, I'll have to leave and take my money where I can get a better return," he said.

Mr Smyth was speaking in Dublin yesterday after Dunloe shareholders had formally approved the company's £22 million bid for Ewart at an extraordinary general meeting (e.g.m.). The bid has been rejected by other Ewart directors.

Mr Smyth told shareholders that an all-Ireland property company makes "absolute commercial and logical sense". He said the proposed acquisition was right for Dunloe.

Mr Smyth said many companies now operated on an all-Ireland basis: "It's been done by the banks, the supermarkets and the institutions."

Ewart says it has been approached by two other third parties and wants its shareholders to reject the bid. However, Mr Smyth said no other offer had been put on the table.

He said if other companies put a value on Ewart and made a bid, then Dunloe would have to look at that.

If there was a net asset value put on Ewart greater than Dunloe had put on it, and Dunloe was convinced of it, then his company would have to re-examine its own offer.

Ewart has already published its interim figures to December 31st, 1997, which increased its net assets per share from 66p sterling to 81p, well above Dunloe's cash offer of 67p.

Dunloe has an alternative share offer - 18 Dunloe shares for every five Ewart shares. This values Ewart shares at 76p sterling - and loan stock at 70p sterling.

Mr Smyth said the Ewart shares had been languishing at 55p and had then risen, because there was a bid on the table. He questioned the Ewart defence document, which now valued the net assets at 81p. He said the value was only what someone would pay for it.

Asked what would happen if there was continued resistance from Ewart, he said Dunloe would have to reconsider its position.

Asked by one shareholder if there was any chance that the situation could be reversed and Ewart could make a bid for Dunloe, Mr Smyth replied this was always possible.

However, he said as the biggest single shareholder in Ewart (he holds 26 per cent), it would have to achieve his support and he would not give it.

He said he and his fellow Dunloe director, Mr Stewart Harrington, who both sit on the Ewart board, had 50 years experience in the property market between them. He said property values in the North still had some way to go and Dunloe was well-positioned to help Ewart capitalise on this. He believed the Ewart board did not have enough experience to take the value out of the company.