IKEA IRELAND, which opened its first store in Ballymun, Dublin last week, incurred a loss of €3,343,696 for the year ended August 31st, 2008, accounts filed for that period show.
The accounts do not include expenditure over the last 12 months during which the store was completed.
The accounts, include a “capital commitment” figure of more than €19.5 million which had been authorised by the directors.
The figures also show that a provision for a tax asset of €636,488 has not yet been utilised, and will be offset against any future profits made by the company.
The company, which received planning permission for the Ballymun store over two years ago, has said in the past that delays in the upgrade of the M50 and in particular the access road to the store had cost the company some €70 million in lost revenue.
Ikea Ireland’s parent company is Skandia AG, a Swiss-registered entity which is a subsidiary of Ikea. The financial accounts show that one of the directors of Ikea Ireland is Owen O’Connell, a partner of William Fry Solicitors. Ikea Ireland paid €36,380 to William Fry Solicitors in legal and secretarial services for the financial year, with a balance of €13,447 outstanding.
Ikea has 301 stores in 36 countries worldwide and the company said 585 million people visited a store last year. However, it is feeling the effect of the downturn.
In June the company announced 5,000 job losses globally. Last month the founder of the company, Ingvar Kamprad, said that sales were running 7 per cent below target and called for further redundancies.
