SECTION
HORSES, BUSINESS, AND
‘BOTTLE’
TALKING TO BITA PATRON LUKE COMER BITA patron Luke Comer, the 62 year-old co-founder of property business The Comer Group chats to me at one of several stud farms he owns, this one in North Wicklow, where many of its 260 acres have stunning views down to the sea from a hill behind The Sugarloaf. The horse racing enthusiast and horse breeder keeps about 60 horses here, roaming in lush green fields that contrast vividly against the blue skies and the Irish sea. There are over 500 more horses elsewhere, including at stud farms in Co Meath, Kilternan in south Dublin, and Co Kildare. He’s just bought Dollanstown Stud in Co Meath for €7m, which has a fine restored Georgian house on 365 acres. Among his stable is a son of Frankel - the legendary British thoroughbred who was unbeaten in his 14-race career, making the stallion a grandson of Coolmore Stud’s legendary Irish thoroughbred Galileo. He reveals that the property empire that he and his UK-based brother Brian, 59, (who runs the business there) founded is now worth close to €5bn excluding debt, while its debt level is less than 20pc of that. Spanning the UK, Ireland, Germany, and now Greece, it includes development land, shopping centres, office blocks and skyscrapers, and more than 10,000 apartments. Its annual rent roll is close to €100m, he adds. Being one of very few Irish developers who came through the 2008 crash solvent, the Comers were ideally placed to benefit and make a fortune from the fallout. They hoovered up various properties - mainly land, office and apartment blocks, thanks to their nous for timing and when to invest, which they have honed over decades in Britain in particular, but also in Germany, having weathered the cycles of their property markets. Having invested about €1bn in Irish property at the bottom of the market, Comer confirms that his firm’s assets here are now worth at least double that. He and Brian intend to hold on to the majority of them, he adds. Comer’s current focus is partly on Greece, where he plans to invest €500m. It emerges only days 16
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after our interview that US private equity behemoth Blackstone, whose property empire is $273bn, has similar aims. But Comer has got in there first it seems, in the case of one trophy property at least, snapping up The Club Hotel and Casino in the seaside resort of Loutraki, which is about an hour’s drive from Athens. He also talks about his ambitions for the 220acre Metro Park site, on the proposed metro route near Dublin Airport. World-renowned London-based architects Foster & Partners - which designed Apple’s HQ in California, and The Gherkin and Bloomberg’s European HQ in London - have drawn up a stunning masterplan for a €2bn development there. It features glass, steel and lots of green space and other greenery, in keeping with the latest eco-conscious design principles. Returning first to horses, earlier this year, Comer spoke about his ambition to create a €100m all-weather track, similar to Belmont in New York, and develop a hotel on a piece of land in Palmerstown, the house and golf resort formerly owned by Jim Mansfield. However, he’s since decided not to proceed with the plans. His horses mainly run on the flat. “We would have a few national hunt horses, but mostly we’d be wanting to win big races on the flat.” When it comes to business, Comer spends his time travelling between Monaco where he lives - and Athens, Germany, London and Ireland. “We’re looking mostly at hotels in Greece, maybe some residential blocks as well. Many hotels there have had hundreds of millions spent on them. Loutraki cost €250m to build,” he says. “Construction is getting very difficult in Ireland. There aren’t enough tradesmen - the real creators.” He shares the view of many senior players in the industry, that the residential market peaked in 2016 or 2017. The firm has bought seven blocks of land here in the past few years, but nothing more, he adds. The Comer Group mainly employs its own teams of contractors to work on its developments. But
