Louis Fitzgerald group swings back to profit

The main firm behind the Louis Fitzgerald hospitality group recorded a pretax profit of €16.94 million last year.

New accounts for the group, which owns the likes of Kehoe’s and the Stag’s Head in Dublin, show the business returned to pretax profit after revenues increased more than three fold from €16.05 million to €55.75 million in the 12 months to the end of June last.

The accounts for parent firm Burtse Ltd. show the group also benefited from €7.94 million in “other operating income” that included €5.87 million in Government grants.

The pretax profit of €16.94 million followed a Covid-19 related pretax loss of €306,598 for the prior year.

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The business continued to be impacted by Covid-19 restrictions for the first half of the year under review and the revenues were still someway off the pre-Covid year revenues of €71.39 million in fiscal 2019.

The directors state that the group “is in a strong financial position” and add in a post-balance sheet event that the group has repaid all bank loans.

The directors state that as a result of this repayment, all bank loans at June 30th last are presented as current liabilities.

The group’s bank loans at the end of June last year totalled €14.4 million, compared with €37.28 million a year previous.

The accounts show that the business repaid loans of €22.8 million during the year and this followed loan repayments of €6.22 million in the prior year.

“Management aims to increase the profitability of the company through increasing turnover and management of its operating costs,” the directors said.

Pay to directors, Louis Fitzgerald and his wife, Helen, declined sharply from €318,292 to €140,264 last year.

The Fitzgerald adult children now take a prominent role in the running of the family business.

As well as the Stag’s Head and Kehoes, the group’s portfolio include well known Dublin city centre pubs Bruxelles, the Gin Palace, Grand Central and Quays in Temple Bar.

The group also operates An Poitin Stil, the Laurels, Palmerstown House, the Roost, Annie May’s, Carroll’s, the Arlington Hotel and the Louis Fitzgerald Hotel.

As the business recovered from Covid-19 numbers, employed by the business increased by 164 from 677 to 841 as staff costs increased almost three fold from €5.8 million to €16.58 million.

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Burtse enjoyed operating profits of €17.5 million and paid out €591,290 in interest payments.

The hospitality group recorded a post tax profit of €14.54 million after paying out corporation tax of €2.399 million.

The business had shareholder funds of €72.199 million including accumulated profits of €27.85 million. The shareholder funds were also boosted by the group’s revaluation reserve increasing from €11.25 million to €25.8 million.