Covid quarantine services help Tifco hotel group to €10.9m profit

A Government deal to operate hotel Covid-19 quarantine facilities helped the Tifco hotel group to record pretax profits of €10.9 million in 2021.

New accounts filed by Tifco Ltd show the hotel group returned to profit after revenues more than doubled from €11.8 million to €25.38 million.

The pretax profit of €10.9 million for 2021 followed a pretax loss of €1.17 million for 2020.

Tifco is one of Ireland’s largest hotel groups. It operates Clontarf Castle in Dublin; the Crowne Plaza hotels at Dublin Airport, Blanchardstown in Dublin and Dundalk, Co Louth; the Hilton Hotel at Dublin Kilmainham; the Holiday Inn Express Dublin Airport; and a collection of non-branded hotels. Tifco is owned by a Luxembourg entity that is controlled and managed by various Apollo funds.

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The hotel group secured a State hotel Covid-19 quarantine contract where the Crowne Plaza Dublin hotels were used exclusively under the contract.

Documents subsequently published by the Department of Health show that the official value of the initial three-month contract award to operate the quarantine system for visitors to the Republic was €5.4 million.

In a report attached to the 2021 accounts, the directors noted that “the provision of hotel quarantine services to the State contributed to the results for the year”, also stating that the company secured a number of contracts from State bodies during 2021 and these contracts continued into 2022.

They said the group revenues of €25.38 million for 2021 “were still well below 2019 revenues of €36.5 million”.

The directors said “cost-reduction plans were implemented by management in line with the reduced level of activity”. They said they recognised that climate change may result in less international travel, which would directly affect the performance of the company.

Numbers employed by Tifco over the year increased from 183 to 250, while staff costs fell from €3.1 million to €2.6 million, “net of Government wage subsidy”.

At the end of 2021, the group’s shareholder funds totalled €129.08 million, including accumulated profits of €21.79 million.

The group’s cash funds increased from €2.74 million to €7.59 million.