Kilkenny Group, the Irish fashion and design retailer owned by the O’Gorman family, returned to an operating profit last year as trading bounced back after Covid and it invested in new stores. This comes as newly-filed accounts show a trading loss for the year to the end of January 2023.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Evelyn Moynihan, chief executive of Kilkenny Group, said: “In [calendar] 2023 we returned to strong operating profit, there’s been really good momentum in the business. We’ve been investing in our bricks and mortar stores as well as in our ecommerce websites, which is driving good growth for us.
“Also, we’ve been doing a lot of work in developing new own brand ranges, such as the Lennon Courtney collaboration, which launched last October. That is really helping to drive footfall and improving margin in the business. We’ve also done a root and branch review of our costs to set us up well for the future. We were back in profit in 2023, and we’re budgeting for even more profit in 2024.”
In terms of current trading Ms Moynihan said customers were still “feeling the pressure” of the cost-of-living crisis. “That’s still ongoing and we think it will be there for some time to come.”
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She added that tourist numbers had been “slow” earlier in the year, picking up in the past four to six weeks. “The shopping centres are performing well [but] city centre locations are definitely a bit tougher with regard to footfall.”
Accounts just filed for Clydaville Holdings Ltd, the parent entity of Kilkenny Group, show that the retailer made a trading loss of €865,603 in the year to the end of January 2023. That period was impacted by the last of the pandemic-related restrictions, the cost-of living crisis that emerged after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and the related spike in energy costs.
“Those results are reflective of the last year of Covid in 2022, which was a very challenging environment. Since then it’s been a lot more positive,” Ms Moynihan said.
The company recorded a bottom-line profit of just under €1.1 million for that financial year as a result of the reversal of a property-related impairment charge.
The accounts show that revenue in the 12-month period rose by 24 per cent to €33.1 million. They also note that Clydaville had reached agreement with Revenue to repay €2.5 million in warehoused debt from the Covid era, in 120 equal instalments beginning in May 2024.
In addition, the accounts show that the company breached its bank debt covenants during the year with Ulster Bank, with meant the lender could demand repayment in full. The loans were subsequently sold to Pepper Finance as Ulster Bank exited the Irish market.
Kilkenny Group operates 18 bricks and mortar stores here, with a shop in the Liffey Valley in Dublin opening last October. It also has separate online stores for the European, UK and US markets following an investment last year of €400,000. “We’re planning for very strong ecommerce growth and are looking at double-digit growth in that space in 2024.”
Ms Moynihan said it has just under 200 staff in the group.
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