Investment

Wealthy Irish families buy up Grafton Street property from investment funds

Published

7 months ago

April 1, 2024

Rich Irish families are buying buildings on Grafton Street, Dublin, often for cash, as big investment funds seek to reduce the amount of retail property in their portfolios.

Limerick billionaire JP McManus, founder of Panda waste collection business Eamon Waters, the Brennan family, owners of the famous bread brand, the McConn family from Roscommon, who own the Budget and Avis franchise in Ireland, and Brian McKiernan, a former head of the Davy financial services group, are among those who now own buildings on the famous street.

Meanwhile, pension and other types of investment funds have been reducing their presence on the street, though Irish Life remains the single largest owner of property on what is Ireland’s most sought-after retail location.

The life assurance and pensions group owns 21 of the 119 buildings on the street, according to an investigation by The Irish Times into who owns Grafton Street.

Other owners include: the Keaveney family, owners of the Peter Mark hair salon chain; the O’Leary family, owners of the Burger King franchise in the Republic; Michael Enoch (80), a long-time Dublin property investor; members of the Odlum flour-milling family, and members of the family behind the Jameson whiskey brand.

Dublin’s Grafton Street is the country’s premier shopping district, commanding high rents on properties owned by institutions and wealthy individuals. Video: Bryan O’Brien

Some of the buildings on the street are owned by families that have been in business on the street for many decades, such as the Barnardo family, who operate Barnardo furriers, the Andrews family, who own the Weir’s watch and jewellery business and the family behind JJ Fox, the tobacconists that operate from number 119 on the corner with College Green.

As the big investment funds reduce the amount of retail property they have in their investment portfolios they are leaving the market open to private buyers, according to Eoin Feeney, head of retail with Colliers real estate and investment management.

“Some of the funds, and general investors, may have been spooked by the negativity surrounding retail, on two fronts — the internet and Covid — and the misbelief that all shopping was going to migrate online,” said Feeney.

However, the fear that people would not return to shops after the Covid pandemic “turned out to be completely wrong”, he said.

Meanwhile, private investors are buying in a market that traditionally has been dominated by funds. Normally, the big funds would compete to buy any property that came on the market in places like Grafton Street, said Feeney, “but now they are pretty much out of the picture. So the privates have the market to themselves at this moment in time”.

Tailte Éireann (formerly the Land Registry) and company records indicate that many of the properties are being bought without recourse to bank borrowings and without mortgages being registered against them.

Data kept by Colliers show the percentage of the street’s buildings owned by private investors went from 23 per cent in 2017 to 36 per cent last year. The new private investor ownership data disclosed today show this trend continuing.

Foreign private investors do not feature heavily in recent transactions, although one substantial property at the College Green end of the street has been bought by a Chinese retail chain while a second property close to it has been bought by an investment company based in Hong Kong.

Records in the commercial lease registry show six-figure annual rents being paid for the ground floor areas of the smaller buildings, but also that many of the upper floors of the buildings on Grafton Street are not in use or command much lower rents.

For example, a building on the corner of Grafton Street and Suffolk Street occupied on the ground floor by Boylesports, and owned by JP McManus, has two leases dated April 2023 in the registry, one with an annual rent of €220,000 while the second, for a surgery on the upper floors, has an annual rent of just €34,250.

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Investment

Tesla shares soar more than 14% as Trump win is seen boosting Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company

Published

3 days ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tesla soared Wednesday as investors bet that the electric vehicle maker and its CEO Elon Musk will benefit from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”

Tesla shares jumped 14.8% Wednesday while shares of rival electric vehicle makers tumbled. Nio, based in Shanghai, fell 5.3%. Shares of electric truck maker Rivian dropped 8.3% and Lucid Group fell 5.3%.

Tesla dominates sales of electric vehicles in the U.S, with 48.9% in market share through the middle of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Subsidies for clean energy are part of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It included tax credits for manufacturing, along with tax credits for consumers of electric vehicles.

Musk was one of Trump’s biggest donors, spending at least $119 million mobilizing Trump’s supporters to back the Republican nominee. He also pledged to give away $1 million a day to voters signing a petition for his political action committee.

In some ways, it has been a rocky year for Tesla, with sales and profit declining through the first half of the year. Profit did rise 17.3% in the third quarter.

The U.S. opened an investigation into the company’s “Full Self-Driving” system after reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

And investors sent company shares tumbling last month after Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night, seeing not much progress at Tesla on autonomous vehicles while other companies have been making notable progress.

Tesla began selling the software, which is called “Full Self-Driving,” nine years ago. But there are doubts about its reliability.

The stock is now showing a 16.1% gain for the year after rising the past two days.

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Investment

S&P/TSX composite up more than 100 points, U.S. stock markets mixed

Published

3 weeks ago

October 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 100 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in base metal and utility stocks, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 103.40 points at 24,542.48.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 192.31 points at 42,932.73. The S&P 500 index was up 7.14 points at 5,822.40, while the Nasdaq composite was down 9.03 points at 18,306.56.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.44 cents US on Tuesday.

The November crude oil contract was down 71 cents at US$69.87 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down eight cents at US$2.42 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$7.20 at US$2,686.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.35 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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Economy

S&P/TSX up more than 200 points, U.S. markets also higher

Published

4 weeks ago

October 11, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 200 points in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets were also headed higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 205.86 points at 24,508.12.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 336.62 points at 42,790.74. The S&P 500 index was up 34.19 points at 5,814.24, while the Nasdaq composite was up 60.27 points at 18.342.32.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.71 cents US on Thursday.

The November crude oil contract was down 15 cents at US$75.70 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down two cents at US$2.65 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down US$29.60 at US$2,668.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.47 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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