With TPG War Chest, Quintain's Michael Hynes Is Ready To Build, Build, Build

When TPG Real Estate acquired Quintain Ireland from funds managed by fellow Texan investor Lone Star this August, not only did it conclude a long-running deal and provide Quintain with additional capital and resources, but it took the brakes off for the next stage of the company’s growth.

That was crucial for Quintain Ireland’s own ambitions as it underpinned plans for a number of very large schemes around Dublin, with Quintain’s scale meaning it will also play a part in answering the ongoing and acute lack of housing supply nationally.

With an existing pipeline that will see it build new homes with a revenue value of €817M in 2026 and similar levels in subsequent years, and with further land acquisitions firmly in its sights, Quintain aims to make full use of its ability to accelerate and expand its housing delivery and double its current delivery rate. An expansion beyond Dublin is also a possibility.

First up are its existing sites and ongoing projects in Adamstown, Clonburris and Portmarnock plus Lone Star-backed Cherrywood, with CEO Michael Hynes telling Bisnow that for the next stage of its growth, the company will hit the ground running.

“By 2026 we are aiming for around 1,500 house completions annually in Ireland with an €817M investment, so that’s effectively doubling our growth,” Hynes said. “One of the major issues in Ireland is the scale of delivery, and the opportunity at Quintain is not just about the land we own but also that we already have planning in place, so there is a fully formed five-year platform there.”

In January 2024, TPG's deal became a “locked box” situation, with the deal price agreed to in advance and Lone Star committed to the investment through 2025 so Quintain could continue moving the platform forward. In 2023, it completed 723 housing units, and in 2024, it is on schedule to complete about 700.

“The transaction took quite a time. Lone Star and TPG began talks in September 2023 and signed the deal in June of this year, before completing in August, so it was about a year all together,” Hynes said, although he also stressed that the developer has been pushing ahead with development during the process.

Hynes said that the management team has spent the first three months since the acquisition with the companies getting to know each other and fully establishing the business opportunity, and he said that they have now commenced on a growth stage to fast-track its ambitious targets.

“There is exceptional demand for homes in Dublin, and we have 2,000 under construction at the moment across 13 sites in four main areas," Hynes said. 

The company has started about 700 of these since the TPG sale closed, and since the company was established in 2016, it has built 2,500 homes in Dublin.

Its focus is on a small number of very large areas, which sets it apart from typical housebuilders in Ireland, Hynes said. Its four major schemes — in Adamstown, Portmarnock, Cherrywood and Clonburris — have the potential for another 7,700 units in total, including the 2,000 under construction. 

In Adamstown in west Dublin, Quintain has built about 2,000 homes, and there are 4,300 units remaining to be constructed. It started in Adamstown in 2016 and has since delivered a new town centre in addition to other infrastructure and schools.

"This area serves as a good example of our ambition to deliver not just homes, but new and well-serviced communities with the necessary facilities, amenities and services," Hynes added. 

At Cherrywood in south Dublin, there is already infrastructure in place. But there is a need for a new village centre and retail outlets, which Quintain hopes to have delivered by 2026. The company is one of a number of developers building homes in the area, and its sites have the potential to deliver a total of 3,000 homes. It has already built 300, with a further 500 due to be completed in the next 12 months. 

In Portmarnock in north Dublin, Quintain has land with the capacity for 1,200 homes, of which 450 have already been built. Meanwhile, in Clonburris in west Dublin — which is similar to Cherrywood in that a number of developers are working to deliver homes in an area that will become a new town — the company is due to start the development of 400 homes in January. 

Those projects will all be pushed ahead, but Hynes stressed that with the ownership of the company now resolved, further land purchases are also in its sights.

“We haven’t made any acquisitions in the last two years, and the next stages is firstly to move forward on our current sites and then next to consider more acquisitions. We’ve identified around 12 opportunities and we’re currently in detailed talks over two,” he said. “So far we’ve just been developing in Dublin, but we are interested in looking at other areas of Ireland.”

He also stressed the importance of the housing industry being given every opportunity to move forward with much-needed new construction to address the severe shortfall in homes across the country.

“It’s pretty much universally accepted that we need around 60,000 new houses a year for the next 10 years before bringing that back to around 50,000 annually. This year looks like around 32,000 to 33,000, which is lower than last year, so the situation is getting worse,” Hynes said.

“There are a number of issues. The first is capital, because while the government estimates that it requires around a €21B investment, about €16B needs to come from the private sector and I think therefore there needs to be better communication about the positive role of private real estate companies,” he said.
“Ireland is a small country and there is a lot of misunderstanding about the importance of the real estate business.”

Hynes pointed out that the issue has been emphasised by the interventions of NAMA after the global financial crisis. which left Ireland’s new-home growth largely in the hands of small to mid-sized house builders.

“These are not going to be interested in developing at scale. There are not many platforms like ours, with the land and planning, which is what investors require to put capital into the market. Ireland needs to be seen as a safe place to invest,” he said.

“Planning is always an issue in any country, and personally, I would like to see a review of the very strict building regulations in Ireland. It is, in particular, making apartment development very expensive. It’s not such a big issue for us developing houses to be honest, but it is creating a viability challenge for sectors such as the PRS market and, again, if we want to create more places to live, then developers need regulatory help,” Hynes added.

He also noted that while the government’s Help to Buy scheme for first-time buyers has proved very useful, because it is capped it means that increasingly houses are falling outside of the maximum level. He called for this to be re-examined to ensure it is fit for purpose.

As for the future, Hynes said that after 12 months of going through the sales process as Quintain Ireland aligned its business objectives for the coming years and saw through the completion of the company’s acquisition, the focus will now firmly be on growth but not diversification to other sectors.

“Quintain has built its business on keeping things simple in terms of focusing purely on housing other than the development we carry out to create village centres. And there are still huge opportunities to develop housing,” he said. “So while it’s easy to look at other real estate asset classes that can serve as a distraction, we’re firmly committed to being the best house builder.”

Ireland's Residential Investment And Development Conference, where Hynes is a speaker, takes place on 21 Nov. at the Aviva Stadium, Dublin.