Ires Reit appoints former Anglo Irish Bank and Lone Star executive to succeed Margaret Sweeney

He is succeeding Margaret Sweeney, with the appointment taking effect on May 1.

Ms Sweeney announced last October that she planned to retire as CEO after serving over six years at Ires, which has been fighting a rearguard action against an activist investor.

The company said Mr Byrne’s appointment followed an “extensive and rigorous selection process”, which began last November and considered both internal and external candidates.

At Anglo, Eddie Byrne was credited with an aggressive lending drive in North America

Hugh Scott-Barrett, chair of Ires, said: “Eddie has an extensive track record across Irish and international real estate, including most recently in the Irish residential sector – and has significant experience in building teams, interacting with local authorities, raising capital, executing transactions and developing strategic initiatives.

“His experience will be a significant and complementary addition as we continue our previously announced strategic review which is considering all strategic options available to maximise value for shareholders.”

For his part, Mr Byrne said: “The real estate sector is going through a period of unprecedented change, making this a very exciting time to be joining the business.”

In his role at Anglo Irish Bank, Mr Byrne was credited with presiding over an aggressive lending drive in North America which amassed a €8bn loan book.

Lone Star, John Grayken’s private equity firm, bought a portion of the loan book soon after the financial crash, and Mr Byrne was appointed its head of asset management in Ireland in January 2013.

His CV also includes a stint as senior vice-president of Lone Star Funds in Boston, and chief portfolio officer at Propertize, a Netherlands-based underwriting and asset-management platform for Lone Star.

In the four years to last October he was joint managing partner at Quintain Developments Ireland, one of the country’s biggest residential real-estate developers, where he was credited with co-establishing a unit that built and sold about 1,500 rental and private homes.

Last month, the board of Ires Reit survived a revolt led by the activist shareholder Vision Capital, a Canadian fund with a 5.01pc stake in the business. It had proposed five new directors to take up positions on the nine-person board.

While the backing of most shareholders for the board and its management of the almost 4,000-strong portfolio of residential properties put an end to Vision’s attempt to trigger a sale of the portfolio, the relatively lacklustre support fed speculation that some of the issues would come back up for discussion at the AGM, scheduled for May 2.