Ballymore slumps to £224m loss

Ballymore Properties slumped to a £224m loss for the year ending 31 March 2010, its accounts reveal.

The property group’s plunge into the red followed a £12.1m loss in 2008/2009 and a £4.6m profit in 2007/2008.

Turnover also plummeted by over half, down from £270m in 2009 to £115m.

Ballymore has been hit hard by Ireland’s property crash, with the majority of its of its bank borrowings under the ownership of the country’s National Asset Management Agency.

In its annual accounts the group said its future depended on NAMA’s approval of a seven year business plan, which NAMA is in the final stage of assessing. The plan sets out provisions for refinancing, joint ventures and disposals of non-core assets.

The directors said they were confident the business plan would be approved by NAMA.

Ballymore reduced its debt burden by £81.7m for the year to 31 March 2010 by selling off some of its non-core assets, including its Snow Hill development in Birmingham. But net debt still stood at £640m for the financial year.

The group wrote down £33.9m due to “the impairment of tangible fixed assets”.

At the peak of the property boom, Ballymore was developing 18,000 homes and some 4 million ft² of commercial space in Britain alone, notably in London’s Docklands. Key developments include the Pan Peninsula building and the Ontario Tower in the docklands area.