IRISH BUSINESSMAN Philip Marley said he will look at selling on some of the property sites owned by student accommodation provider Ely Property in Ireland and the UK now that he has taken the company private.
Ely was sold to Mr Marley and other unnamed investors on Christmas Eve by Irish quoted company Newcourt Group, in a transaction valued at €39.3 million.
No cash has changed hands. Verum Ltd, a vehicle led by Mr Marley, will assume Ely's €37.1 million debt. A further €2.2 million will be paid to Newcourt by June 2011 if certain contractual obligations are met.
"Ely will be a different business going forward," Mr Marley told The Irish Times,"We are going to be more of a dealer than a developer. If you can de-risk your business then that's very important in the current (economic) environment."
Mr Marley said the company had "one or two sites in London" with planning permission for student accommodation that it would look to sell on, but added that he so far has had no offers for them. "We haven't tried to sell them yet."
Ely has six student blocks in Ireland and Britain, comprising 1,772 beds. These have close to 100 per cent occupancy and the company has a strong pipeline of projects for development in 2009.
Ely recently received full planning permission for a 734-bed student accommodation and commercial use development in Birmingham city centre.
It also has another 1,400 beds across five sites in the UK and Ireland currently in the planning process.
Mr Marley said the student accommodation sector continues to perform strongly. "The only sector in property that is moving at the moment is student accommodation," he said.
"Obviously, it's not without its issues, and you have to get things built."
About 80 per cent of Ely's business is now driven out of Britain, with the balance in Ireland. Mr Marley said he would not be averse to taking on more debt if the right opportunity came along.
"We definitely see this as a time of opportunity and we wouldn't be afraid to take on more debt for the right deal."
Mr Marley is regaining control of a business he founded in 2003 and floated on the Aim junior stock market in London two years later.
He sold Ely to Newcourt in 2006 for €22 million in cash and shares, pocketing almost half of that himself.
Mr Marley is believed to have earned about €7 million in cash from the sale.
"I was very young at the time (34) and we were a small public company. It made sense for us to be part of a bigger public company at the time.
"The Irish stock market has collapsed in the meantime and that created the opportunity to take the company private. I'm delighted to have control back."
Mr Marley is also non-executive chairman of Metic Group, an Irish architectural glass company that floated on Aim last week.
He is the company's biggest shareholder, with a 36.9 per cent stake.
