QIH’s earnings hit €26.6m in 2019 as company changes name to Mannok

Earnings at building materials and packaging maker, Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH), grew marginally to €26.6 million last year, the latest figures show.

Quinn, which makes plastic food containers and cement, said on Monday that turnover dipped to €234 million last year from €240 million in 2018 as it passed on raw material price cuts to customers.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, which measures the cash that a business generates, inched up to €26.6 million in 2019 from €26.4 million the previous year, the group added.

QIH said that it was re-naming the organisation Mannok. The group explained that this was the culmination of its five-year transformation and investment pregame. It made no mention of long-running tensions with the family of the company's original founder Sean Quinn.

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A statement from QIH added that the programme had re-positioned the group as a manufacturer of “increasingly sophisticated” building materials and packaging while growing sales by 30 per cent over that time.

Abducted

Last year one of QIH’s directors, Kevin Lunney, was abducted and left with life-changing injuries as part of an ongoing campaign of violence and threats against the company’s executives. The business was founded many years ago by Mr Quinn, who went bankrupt following the financial crash of a decade ago, with his business empire broken up.

QIH invested €11.5 million in its businesses during 2019, bringing to €60 million the total spent on its operations since 2014, the year they were bought from the group founded by businessman, Sean Quinn.

The actual amount of products that QIH sold during the year remained stable, as the fall in revenues was solely down to lower raw material prices, the company’s figures show.

A group statement also noted that earnings grew in the face of increased uncertainty around the UK’s exit from the EU.

QIH is based in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, but has operations either side of the border and sells a high volume of its products in Britain.

Liam McCaffrey, its chief executive, dubbed the performance robust in light of Brexit difficulties. He noted that 2019 was the fifth year in a row during which earnings grew. Staff numbers were steady at 830. "Our targeted investment of recent years has established strong foundations for continuing growth across Ireland and the UK," he added. Mr McCaffrey said that QIH had taken extensive measures to protect workers and customers from Covid-19.

He congratulated the group's employees on their support for front-line healthcare workers, which prompted the business to donate personal protective equipment to several organisations, including local hospitals in Cavan and Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh.

“Trading for both our building products and packaging businesses is strong year-to-date, despite the impact of Covid-19 and continuing Brexit concerns, and we are confident of another strong performance for both divisions in 2020,” said Mr McCaffrey.