Directors at HWBC shared €2.4m bonus

EIGHT directors at property agent HWBC shared a bumper post-crisis profit share of €2.4m in 2016, as the firm reaped the benefits of rising commercial real estate valuations.

According to the latest filed accounts for the company, directors’ remuneration increased by 26.3pc on the previous year even as profits remained relatively static.

HWBC, led by managing director, Tony Waters, has been on a roll since the commercial real estate market fired back to life in 2014.

In that year the firm’s investment business reportedly doubled to over €1bn.

As HWBC files abridged accounts, it’s unclear whether that pace of expansion has been sustained. But the directors’ pay perks point to near boom-time conditions.

Last year, its eight directors each collected a €300,000 bonus. The accounts state that in addition to HWBC’s wage bill of €4.46m, which included its directors, a further €2.4m was paid in “aggregate emoluments” to its top management.

In 2015 the bonus pool was slightly shallower at €1.9m.

According to the accounts all eight directors hold shares in the firm, apart from John Whooley, the financial controller.

Yet while the pay perks have increased the abridged financial statements show profits slipped by close €11,000 to €1.12m last year.

HWBC is a regular adviser to Irish Life and acted for the fund management arm of the life insurance company, now owned by the Canada’s Great West Lifeco, in its recent €50m acquisition of AIB’s principal Grafton St outlet.

The property, which also has frontage onto Wicklow St, changed hands in 2010 for €28m.