Mount Juliet firm makes €9.38m profit following loan interest write-off
Mount Juliet clubhouse. Mount Juliet is one of the best-known hotels in the country and has 125 bedrooms, a Michelin-starred restaurant, and sits on a 500-acre estate, while its Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course hosted the Irish Open in 2021 and 2022.
The firm that operates the five-star Mount Juliet estate hotel and golf resort in Co Kilkenny last year recorded pre-tax profits of €9.38m.
Last month, Dublin-based investment group, Tetrarch Capital and businessman, Emmet O’Neill entered into a deal to sell the resort to a company, Tipberry Ltd which is controlled by the founder of data centre developer Winthrop Technologies, Barry English, for nearly €50m.
Tipberry is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mr English’s Penman Holdings Ltd which also owns and operates Johnstown Estate Hotel and Trim Castle Hotel in Co Meath.
Mount Juliet is one of the best-known hotels in the country and has 125 bedrooms, a Michelin-starred restaurant, and sits on a 500-acre estate, while its Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course hosted the Irish Open in 2021 and 2022.
Now, new accounts for Mount Juliet UC show that the company recorded pre-tax profits of €9.38m arising from its owner agreeing to write off cumulative interest of €9.08m on shareholder loans.
Revenues for the resort firm last year increased by 10.5% from €17.6m to €19.47m and the directors state that “the trading performance for the year has been satisfactory”.
The accounts show that before the 'exceptional' €9.08m gain from the write-off of the cumulative interest, the company’s operating profits increased by 44% from €833,009 to €1.2m.
The pre-tax profit of €9.38m followed a pre-tax loss of €1.7m in 2022 — a positive swing of €11.1m.
The business also benefited from lower interest charges last year of €900,301 compared to an interest payout of €2.55m in 2022.
The accounts show that following the €9.03m interest write-off, the amount owed in shareholder loans reduced from €24.24m to €15.16m at year-end.
The numbers employed at the business decreased from 347 to 291 as the number of hotel staff reduced from 288 to 210 while staff engaged in marketing more than doubled from 14 to 36.
Staff costs last year increased from €8.07m to €8.22m.
The resort firm’s 2023 profit takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.11m. During the year, the firm incurred a €488,033 operator fee payable to Tetrarch Capital which was almost a three-fold increase on the €175,000 operator fee for 2022.
The firm had a shareholders’ deficit of €9.58m at the end of 2023 while the company’s cash funds last year decreased from €3.13m to €1.17m.
The accounts show that the amount owed in bank loans at the end of 2023 totalled €11.23m.
