The front four blocks and adjoining land are to be bought by Sean Dunne and will be leased back to AIB on a 20-year lease. The lease agreement includes a break clause exercisable by either party after four years and 11 months. The remaining properties, to be bought by Hibernian Life and Pensions Limited, also will be leased back to AIB for 20 years.
The initial annual rent payable on both lots by AIB will be $14.43 million (euro 11.6 million) per annum. The rental rate may be adjusted subsequent to rent reviews every five years.
The sale will provide AIB with a post-tax profit of $286.15 million. AIB officials say they will reinvest the proceeds in its core banking business, and that they believe the cost will be more than offset by savings and by the benefits derived from the use of the freed-up capital.
The square footage involved in the deal was not immediately clear and AIB representatives were unavailable for comment Wednesday morning. In AIB's more recent annual report, it describes the Bankcentre campus (located at Ballsbridge, Dublin 4) as a complex of interlinked buildings on approximately 14 acres that were completed in 1979 and contain approximately 350,000 sf of space.
A development project is under way that is not part of the sale that will double the office space on the campus in early 2008. The expansion will be used to consolidate a number of head office locations in the Dublin area.
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