House-builders McInerney Holdings is expecting further strong growth in the current year after announcing a 58 per cent increase in 1999 pre-tax profits to €14.2 million (£11.2 million).

This includes an exceptional contribution of €1.58 million from the sale of two investment properties in Dublin and Galway but even stripping this out, profits were well ahead of last year. The company plans to pay an interim dividend of 2.54 cents (2 pence) on April 20th.

Chairman Mr Bob Ferris said each of the company's divisions - housing, commercial and leisure - substantially increased their contribution to profits.

"The strong performance of our commercial and leisure activities is particularly encouraging as they provide us with significant profit generation outside our core Irish house-building activities," he said.

House-building, however, accounted for the lion's share of profits as demand for residential housing in the Republic remained strong. Profits before interest and taxation in this division rose by 78 per cent to €13.6 million on turnover of €77.6 million. The number of house completions during the year was 600, of which 567 were in private housing and 33 in contract housing.

Managing director, Mr Barry O'Connor, said that although McInerney had not met its target of 650 completions last year, profits rose because of an improvement in margins to 17.5 per cent from 12.5 per cent as a result of a change in the mix of houses built.

"We built more upmarket houses and apartments last year and earned a bigger margin on those," Mr O'Connor said, noting the average price per unit rose from €105,000 (£82,700) in 1998 to €137,000 (£107,900) last year.

The group said it experienced a general easing of house price inflation, particularly in Dublin, in the latter half of the year but house prices in other regions grew at a faster rate.

McInerney's leisure division, which is made up of the company's Four Seasons Country Club in Spain also performed well, reporting profits of €1.2 million, up from €747,000.

The group plans further expansion in Spain where it has secured a freehold site to develop 72 apartments at Carib Playa, close to the Four Seasons. Already, 31 apartments have been pre-sold to Irish buyers and when these are completed, the group will sell the remainder.

Its commercial division, Hillview Securities, reported profits of €2.0 million, up from €781,000. It built some 54,000 square feet of industrial space last year and hopes to increase that to 134,000 square feet in 2000.

The company said a large portion of the €9.7 million proceeds of last year's share placing had been invested to strengthen the group's land bank, particularly in the Cork and Dublin regions.

McInerney now has more than 5,000 plots spread across the state, up from 3,000 before the start of last year.