The Butterly group, the former owners of the Stardust nightclub, has assets worth at least €10.9 million, according to accounts filed in the Companies Registration Office. There are many strings to Butterly group's bow, reports Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent.
The group owns the Butterly Business Park on the Kilmore Road, Artane, Dublin, which includes the site of the former nightclub. It is now essentially a property holding group.
Accounts for Butterly Business Park Ltd, the group's holding company, state it had assets worth €10.9 million as of December 2004. However, this may be a significant underestimate.
The company is now owned by Eamon (61) and Colm (59) Butterly, sons of the founder of the group, the late Patrick Butterly. Neither man was available for comment yesterday.
The company's accounts do not include a profit figure but indicate it is trading profitably. The accounts show that in the mid-1990s the interests of Patrick and Eileen Butterly and a number of their children, were bought out by Colm and Eamon Butterly.
The Silver Swan pub, which is on the Stardust site and which was the subject of protests this week, was leased out by the group up to November 2005, when it was returned to the group by the former tenant.
The founder of the group was born in 1919 and started out in his early teens selling coal and turf. He rose to become a wealthy north Dublin businessman with interests in a number of activities, including the Fruitfield jam business. He was one of a number of businessmen invited to join the Fianna Fáil fund-raising group, Taca, in the 1960s.
At the time of the fire the Stardust was owned by way of one of the group's companies, R & W Scott (Ireland) Ltd, subsequently Scotts Foods Ltd. This company was voluntarily wound up in 1995 and £524,000 (€665,480) returned to shareholders.
The last filed annual return showed the directors were Patrick, Eamon and Colm Butterly. Eamon Butterly was general manager of the Stardust premises on the night of the fire.
Other companies in the group include: Patrick Butterly & Sons (Farms) Ltd, a property holding company; Patrick Butterly & Sons Ltd, which rents a snooker hall; and Butterly Enterprises Ltd.
The property holding company has fixed assets worth €5.77 million, according to the accounts to end December 2004. A value of €3.36 million was put on its property at Artane and a further €2.17 million on 86/87 Lagan Road, Dublin 11, which is a factory.
The accounts state that in December 2004, Eamon Butterly acquired the freehold interest of a sub-lease on a property known as Newlands, on the Kilmore Road, Artane. Apartments have been developed on the site.
Colm Butterly owns 51 per cent of a company called Cellular Consultancy Services Ltd, with an address at Butterly Business Park. The company has accumulated profits of €4,881.
Notes to the company's accounts state there was a fire at the unit it lets on the Butterly Business Park in September 2004, causing extensive damage.
The landlord, Patrick Butterly & Sons Ltd, is finalising a claim in relation to the loss of rent, according to the note, and Cellular Consultancy will cease trading when the loss claim is finalised.
Eamon Butterly is a director of a company called Newland Court Management Company Ltd, with an address at the Butterly Business Park, which was incorporated in 2003 and intended to start trading in December 2005, according to its latest filings.