Staff at the Rupert Murdoch-owned news agency Storyful, which specialises in social media intelligence and online news, have shared bonus payments of €1.65 million over the past three years. The company is headquartered in Dublin.
Accounts show that staff shared a bonus of €515,135 in the 12 months to the end of June last. This followed a payout of €581,415 under the same heading in 2022 and there was a bonus payout of €553,339 in 2021.
The accounts show that pretax losses at the business last year narrowed by 22 per cent from €3.96 million to €3.08 million. Storyful Ltd is owned by News Corp.
The business reduced its losses as revenues dipped by 7 per cent from €4.48 million to €4.19 million in the 12 months to the end of June last.
Not all of Storyful’s global revenues are included in the results and relate only to the Irish-based entity, Storyful Ltd.
The Irish unit recorded the losses as the company “continued to expand services for media, brands and social platforms and made investments in the product and technology departments”.
The firm’s administrative expenses reduced from €6.37 million to €5.23 million and, in a note with the accounts, the directors said that “these expenses continued to be tightly controlled and are driven primarily by payroll costs and amortisation”.
The business last year recorded the pretax losses after booking combined non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €793,988.
The loss also takes into account a loss of €138,725 in exchange differences and restructuring costs of €63,269. The firm’s lease costs reduced from €437,079 to €334,854.
The firm did benefit from a research and development (R&D) tax credit of €124,754.
Numbers employed increased from 62 to 66. Staff costs last year totalled €5.69 million.
Former RTÉ Prime Time presenter Mark Little set up the company in 2010 and Mr Little and the company’s investors sold it to News Corp for €18 million in December 2013.
The directors said they had considered the losses to date and reported that they were satisfied that appropriate measures have been taken to bring about the company’s profitability.
The note said that funding provided by, and available from the shareholder, was sufficient to enable the company to meet its liabilities as they fell due.
The pay package for directors increased from €784,713 to €868,656 that was made up of remuneration of €668,717, €167,489 under long-term incentive plans and €32,450 in pension contributions.
At the end of June last, accumulated losses of €55.8 million were offset by the share premium account of €59 million and called up share capital of €392,075 resulting in shareholders’ funds of €3.57 million.
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