BRITISH BANKS have agreed to extend the repayment date on loans to Irish house builder McInerney Holdings, the group said yesterday.

McInerney Holdings also looks set to take a further hit on the value of its land bank, which it reduced by €27.6 million in August last year.

McInerney, which focuses on building and selling new houses in the first-time buyer market, warned yesterday that its results for last year would be worse than expected.

It built 1,359 new houses in 2008 in its markets in Ireland, Britain and Spain, considerably short of the 2,414 it completed in 2007.

At the end of 2008, McInerney had 589 deposits from prospective buyers, compared to 655 a year earlier.

The company said in a trading statement yesterday that it had restructured loans from British banks.

The new agreements are “structured in a manner more appropriate to the group’s focus on cash collection and sales rather than earnings”, it said.

“As part of the revised structure, the maturity date [the date when the loan must be repaid] is to be extended to 31st March 2010.”

The group intends signing the revised agreements before the publication of its annual results in March.

McInerney also said yesterday that it was reviewing the value of its land bank in light of recent falls in property prices.

“This will be finalised as part of the preliminary results announcement and will result in a further material impairment charge,” it said.

The statement added that recent interest rate cuts should benefit the housing market in the medium term.