Daire O'Brien: The final word
Market is alive and kicking, says auctioneer MacDonald
Thursday November 01 2007
Hooke & MacDonald have never been shy when it comes to larging up the property market. Their breathless rhapsodies have been a part of the property scene for well over a decade.
The auctioneer's tennis-playing figurehead, Ken MacDonald, politely took exception to Final Word's musings a few weeks back that, like it or not, the market was dormant.
Wrong, he said, there's plenty of action out there in the new homes arena.
OK, we said, give us some figures and we'll see what we can do.
"Well," responded Ken, "We've sold €100m worth of new homes in the last six weeks and, while that mightn't have us back at 2006 levels it certainly compares favourably to 2004 and 2005."
The developments that have chipped in the majority of those sales are the Churchfields development in Ashbourne where 105 homes have been sold and the Parnell Street development Greeg Court -- one of the last of the Section 23s -- which sold its entire 115 stock over its launch weekend.
Fair enough Ken but what about the commuter belt ?
"Agreed," he says, "things are slower on that front."
Right Ken, so to conclude, I don't want to feel like the cheerleader for a sinking ship.
So can I quote you as saying that come June 2008 we will be in a considerably better place than we are now ?
"Absolutely," says Ken, "Just come in to our reception area at the moment. It's like Heuston Station. People are buying properties for the same price as they were 18 months previously and with Dublin rents going up in double digits, there's real confidence out there."
Message delivered.
Paddy Power share worth the buyback
Merrion Capital has caught the gambling bug in its latest note on Paddy Power released this week. The broker now has a price target of €31.30 in its sights based on the likelihood of increased share buybacks and dividend growth.
The latter factors of course, are huge health indicators for a company.
However, Abbey Housebuilders, which we recommended here a few weeks ago, is another stock that should benefit from share buybacks.
This week Abbey said it will buy up to 15pc of its stock back. This is fast becoming a serious dividend play.
The company is relatively debt-free and can sit on its hands until the market turns back in its favour.
Definitely not one for CFD trading, but certainly one for the self-administered pension fund.
Superquinn needs to excite taste buds
Could Superquinn be turning the corner ?
The company's announcement during the week that it was to introduce yet another premium range of own-label goodies was uninspiring to say the least but executive chairman Simon Burke's statement, that Irish people shouldn't need Marks and Spencer if Superquinn was doing its job, was honest and accurate.
Superquinn has been going downhill since before the 2004 takeover and, despite Feargal Quinn's profile still being on the company's website, his uncanny knack of making the middle orders feel special in the aisles has been sadly missed.
With every convenience store in the country having a posh food section, Superquinn's clothes have long since been stolen.
People don't go to Superquinn for tinned goods and vac-packed meat.
They go to have their tastebuds stretched and developed through product innovation.
KPN, Eircom discuss cracking TV tough nuts
THE visit of senior executives from Dutch telco KPN to the Eircom boardroom earlier in the month got tongues wagging on a potential tie-up between the two, with everything from an outright takeover to a share sale being mooted.
If the latter scenario sounds familiar, it should, because KPN was one of the famous "strategic partners" in the pre-floatation Telecom Eireann. However, our sources indicate that it was really only about how one old legacy monopoly can learn from another when it came to the pesky matter of competition in the broadband space.
KPN, like Eircom, is finding that the cable television companies are tough nuts to crack.
Unlike pure broadband providers, they have an established relationship to leverage.
In the old days, nearly everyone had a landline and, therefore, Eircom had a foot in the door anyway.
With the younger demographic disinterested in fixed lines but obsessive about broadband, it's a tricky one for a company like Eircom, whose traditional financial strength was all about the ties that bind.
- Daire O'Brien
