Davy Morning Equity Briefing
Jan 07, 2026
Irish banks
November mortgage approvals: softer monthly activity, ICS raises fixed rates
November mortgage approvals softened, but year-to-date (ytd) activity remains resilient. Weaker first-time buyer (FTB) and mover purchase volumes led the decline. Elsewhere, the non-bank lender ICS has increased its fixed rate mortgage offering, likely driven by market based interest rates.
Kingspan Group
To retain full ownership of ADVNSYS
Kingspan has announced that it will now not pursue a potential IPO of ADVNSYS. As such, there is no impact on our financial forecasts as we had not made any adjustments for this possibility. Kingspan remains exceptionally well placed as a business, and this should be confirmed when the group announces 2025 results in February.
Irish economy
Exchequer returns point to a strong economy into 2026
December’s exchequer returns saw another strong increase in corporation taxes, up €1bn on the same month last year. This is very similar to the increase seen in July and the results are likely to be related. Elsewhere, non-corporation tax receipts picked up towards 6% growth in Q4, well ahead of the Budget 2026 profile for growth of 4.3%. We think this is in keeping with the Irish economy reverting to stronger growth again into the new year. Spending growth was also relatively subdued again in December, suggesting upside risk to the Budget 2026 forecast of a €10bn surplus in 2025.
