Web Summit, the conference business at the centre of a bitter shareholder dispute earlier this year that involved a High Court civil trial in March, saw profits and revenues surge in 2024 as founder Paddy Cosgrave returned as chief executive.
Mr Cosgrave resigned as CEO in late 2023, weeks before its flagship conference in Lisbon. He returned to lead Web Summit in April 2024, just six months later.
The businessman had stepped back from Web Summit after a backlash to his posts on social media about Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7th, 2023 attack, which saw several big multinationals pull out of the annual event.
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Consolidated accounts for the group behind Web Summit and its sister brands, including Collision and the Rise tech conference in Hong Kong, reveal it bounced back to an after-tax profit of €3.7 million in 2024 from a €6.7 million loss in 2023.
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The performance came off the back of a 32 per cent surge in turnover to €79.2 million in 2024.
The group has been approached for comment.
In 2024, Web Summit hosted its first conference in Qatar in addition to its regular events in Lisbon, Vancouver and Doha, which likely contributed to the sharp rise in revenues.
In a report attached to the accounts, the directors noted that the main company in the group, Manders Terrace, settled its legal dispute with two shareholders in March 2025.
[ Bitter Web Summit dispute struck out and settled at High CourtOpens in new window ]
The settlement is subject to a “non-disclosure” agreement, according to a separate note within the filings.
After a little over a week of a High Court civil trial in March, Mr Cosgrave settled five interrelated lawsuits involving his two former friends and business partners, David Kelly and Daire Hickey.
Their shares in the company were “redeemed” in April, the directors noted in the filings, giving Mr Cosgrave 100 per cent control of the business.
Details of the settlement were not made public, although it was understood that Mr Cosgrave agreed to acquire Mr Kelly’s 12 per cent and Mr Hickey’s 7 per cent stakes in Web Summit, likely paying tens of millions of euro for the shares.
In return, Mr Cosgrave told reporters outside the court that his former business partners had “finally publicly accepted that I – and I alone – founded Web Summit in 2009″.
