Dutch investors are poised to buy a supplier to a €200 million-plus a year State retrofit scheme after regulators cleared the deal.
Mergers watchdog the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) cleared Netherlands-based Waterland Private Equity’s bid to buy Hometherm Insulation Ltd in Kells Co Meath at the weekend.
If the deal goes ahead, it would position Waterland to benefit from accelerated State spending to retrofit 500,000 homes with insulation, heat pumps and other equipment by 2030 to hit climate action targets.
Hometherm Insulation is a supplier to the Warmer Homes Scheme, a fully State-funded programme for “energy-poor” households overseen by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).
Figures from the authority show that it spent €229 million last year retrofitting 7,700 homes, an average of about €29,000 each, under the scheme.
The number of homes that benefited from the programme grew 30 per cent from 2023 to last year.
According to the SEAI, work on all retrofitting schemes will continue accelerating this year, indicating higher spending in 2025.
Companies such as Hometherm, which do the actual retrofitting for the Warmer Homes Scheme, bid for the contracts through a tendering process that the authority runs under State procurement rules.
SEAI explained that they are then allocated homes on which to work using various criteria.
Hometherm would not comment on the Waterland bid as the deal has not been completed. The Dutch firm did not respond to a request for comment.
The Irish company’s most recent accounts show its profit for the year grew 90 per cent to €4.2 million in 2023 from €2.2 million in 2022.
It paid a €3.5 million dividend to its owner, Dico Select Holdings Ltd, whose shareholders are Daragh, Ivor and Cormac O’Halloran.
Dico is a holding company. It paid no dividend in 2023 and ended the year with €10.6 million in net assets, against €7 million 12 months earlier.
The O’Hallorans are directors of Hometherm and involved in running that business. The insulation company employed 19 people in 2023.
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Waterland owns businesses in north western Europe spanning engineering, professional services, leisure, industry and technology. It has invested €14 billion since its foundation in 1999.
In the Republic, it owns Bellew Electrical, a Dundalk, Co Louth firm that supplies and fits industrial electrical equipment, and MTM Engineering, in Slane, Co Meath, which supplies electrical engineering services to the data centre, semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries.
Hometherm and Waterland notified the deal to the CCPC on February 28th.
Irish law requires parties to acquisitions or mergers to notify the commission where their turnovers in the previous financial year were €10 million or more, or the combined turnover of the businesses is €60 million or more.
The commission reviews the deals to ensure that they will not distort normal commercial competition.
Last year SEAI spent €346 million upgrading the energy efficiency of almost 54,000 homes and on domestic solar panel installation grants. The aim is to bring properties up to a Building Energy Rating of B2 or better. The scale runs from A to G, with A being the most efficient.
Most of the programmes involve a contribution from the authority. The Warmer Homes Scheme is the only one where the State contributes the total amount.
To qualify, applicants must own their own home and be on one of seven social welfare payments, including the fuel and jobseekers' allowances.
