The Irish arm of fast food giant McDonald’s recorded its most profitable year ever last year, as pretax profits surged 157 per cent to €43.16 million.

New accounts for McDonald’s Restaurants of Ireland Ltd show that pretax profits jumped by €26.37 million from €16.78 million, as the business exited operating its own fast food outlets here.

This followed the last owner-operated McDonald’s closing permanently at Dublin Airport on February 28th, 2022.

The move to exit the owner-operator model here came 45 years after McDonald’s opened its first fast food restaurant in Ireland on Dublin’s Grafton Street.

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Today, the McDonald’s business comprises 94 franchised stores and the firm recorded the sharp increase in pretax profits as revenues rose by 20 per cent from €67.13 million to €80.56 million.

That easily outstripped the pre-Covid 19 revenues of €69 million in 2019.

The pretax profit of €43.16 million equates to an average weekly take of €830,038.

The bumper profits of recent years allowed the company to pay out combined dividends of €45 million across 2022 and 2021.

The firm paid out a dividend of €25 million on November 30th, 2022, and this followed a dividend payout of €20 million in 2021.

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The company is eyeing expanding the business here with the directors stating that “the company anticipates further expansion of its operations in the Republic of Ireland”.

Operating profits more than doubled to €42.75 million while the firm’s gross profit increased by 55 per cent from €43.67 million to €67.93 million.

The directors state that “proportionately larger increases in gross margin and operating profit are reflective of costs not increasing to the same degree as turnover including the fact that some costs are fixed”.

Employee numbers fell from 163 to 28 due to the switch in the last operated store to a franchise agreement in February 2022.

Staff costs reduced from €3.93 million to €1.84 million.

Profit after tax of €35 million came after paying corporation tax of €8.15 million.

The company’s lease costs increased from €15.32 million to €16.48 million. The firm also benefited from an onerous lease credit of €3.75 million.

At the end of December 2022, the firm had shareholder funds of €108.58 million that included accumulated profits of €28.89 million.

Cash funds increased sharply from €35.2 million to €53.56 million.

McDonald’s sources its beef from 12,000 Irish farmers.