Smooth ride for Glenveagh as Minister confronts housing crisis
Foam stress balls shaped like hard hats branded with the Glenveagh logo were among the handful of goodies on offer to attendees of the Dublin-listed home builder's annual general meeting in the Westbury Hotel, Dublin, this week.
Not that the shareholders and executives present on the day needed them. Why would they?
Before the meeting, Glenveagh announced the expansion of its share buyback programme for the second time this year, from €65 million to €85 million. The company reiterated guidance for full-year earnings and said it plans to deliver some 2,600 homes this year, up from 2,415 in 2024, which was a 77 per cent jump from the previous year.
[ Has Fingal County Council found a solution to our housing crisis? ]
Outside the confines of the plush Dublin 2 hotel, a housing crisis is raging and patience with the Government's glacial pace of progress on the issue is wearing thin if it has not evaporated. Public and political frustration has boiled over in the early months of the new Coalition, exploding into furore over newly minted Fianna Fáil Minister for Housing James Browne's handling of the housing 'tsar' debacle.
Reassured, perhaps, by Glenveagh's share price performance over the past 18 months, chief executive Stephen Garvey cut a sanguine figure when asked about Browne's travails.
'I do definitely think the Minister is getting a rough time,' he told a media scrum after the meeting on Thursday. 'The Minister is, what, four months in the brief? I'm 20-odd years [in the industry] and I'm still learning what's involved in housing.'
[ Top finance official raises risks to public finances from surge in housing body deals ]
But the Government parties – particularly Fine Gael, which has been in office for most of the past two decades – have had plenty of time to get their arms around the crisis. At a glance, the Coalition's response appears to be more of the same plus a new quango or two.
That might wash with the wider industry. Politically, however, a rocky road lies ahead for Browne and whoever is named to the top job in the Coalition's new housing agency.
Meanwhile, it looks like there is plenty of profit to be made and value to be achieved for shareholders in the homebuilding sector.
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