The Merrion Hotel in Dublin has eliminated accumulated losses in the business with a 6.9 per cent rise in annual operating profits to €1.56 million. Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent, reports.
Located opposite Government Buildings on Upper Merrion Street, the five-star hotel is one of the plushest resting places in the Dublin. Well-known as a haunt of business figures, a stay in its penthouse suite costs as much as €2,695 a night. Eateries in the hotel include a restaurant run by the award-winning chef Patrick Guilbaud.
The business is controlled by Glen Dimplex founder Martin Naughton, former Glen Dimplex shareholder and former AIB chairman Lochlainn Quinn and Northern Ireland hotelier Billy Hastings.
Accounts newly filed for Hotel Merrion Ltd, which operates the business, show that an after-tax profit of €1.5 million in the year to October was enough to wipe out an outstanding accumulated loss of €1.49 million.
The result marks a return to a net profit position for the hotel after a prolonged downturn in the wake of the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the US, foot-and-mouth disease in Britain in 2001, the Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crises in 2002 and 2003 and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
"We had three or four turbulent years," said hotel general manager Peter McCann. "It's nice to be reporting a return into the black."
Mr McCann said the Ryder Cup was a particular success for the business last year. "Even though we knew it was coming down the tracks, we still had to make the thing work."
While the business faces renewed competition from the refurbished Shelbourne hotel on St Stephen's Green, Mr McCann said business was up on 2006 and had performed well throughout the year.
He also sees new opportunities following the closure this week of the Berkeley Court and Jurys hotels in Ballsbridge. "We saw 600 rooms disappear yesterday. For operators in the city that has to augur well for the next year or two."
In spite of the improvement in the hotel's financial position, separate accounts for its parent company show an increase in its accumulated deficit to €7.25 million from €6.14 million.
Landmark Investment Company built the hotel in 1997 and made an agreement to lease it from AIB Combined Leasing. The AIB unit paid £19 million for the property. Landmark has the right to acquire the building "at a specified price" at any time from 2004, the accounts say.
