The company behind Co Kilkenny’s five-star Mount Juliet estate hotel and golf resort recorded pretax profits of €9.38 million last year.
In October, Dublin-based investment group Tetrarch Capital and businessman Emmet O’Neill entered a deal to sell the resort to Tipberry Ltd – controlled by data centre developer Winthrop Technologies founder Barry English – for nearly €50 million.
Tipberry is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mr English’s Penman Holdings Ltd which also owns and operates Johnstown Estate Hotel and Trim Castle Hotel, both in Co Meath.
Mount Juliet is one of Ireland’s best-known hotels, with 125 bedrooms and a Michelin starred restaurant on its 500 acre estate. Its Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course hosted the Irish Open in 2021 and 2022.
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New accounts for Mount Juliet UC show the company recorded the pretax profits of €9.38m arising from its owner agreeing to write off cumulative interest of €9.08 million on shareholder loans.
Revenues for the resort increased by 10.5 per cent, from €17.6 million to €19.47 million, and its directors said “the trading performance for the year has been satisfactory”.
Before the ‘exceptional’ €9.08 million gain from the write off of the cumulative interest, according to the accounts, the company’s operating profits increased by 44 per cent, from €833,009 to €1.2 million.
Its pretax profit followed a pretax loss of €1.7 million in 2022 – a positive swing of €11.1 million.
The business also benefited from lower interest charges last year of €900,301 compared to €2.55 million in 2022.
The accounts show that following the interest write-off, the amount owed in shareholder loans reduced from €24.24 million to €15.16 million.
Numbers employed at the business fell from 347 to 291, with hotel staff decreasing from 288 to 210. However, staff engaged in marketing more than doubled from 14 to 36.
Staff costs for the year increased from €8.07 million to €8.22 million.
The resort firm’s 2023 profit takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.11 million. During the year, it incurred a €488,033 operator fee payable to Tetrarch Capital which was almost a three-fold increase on the €175,000 fee for 2022.
The firm recorded a shareholders’ deficit of €9.58 million while cash funds last year decreased from €3.13 million to €1.17 million.
The accounts show that the amount owed in bank loans at the end of 2023 totalled €11.23 million.
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