Coffee Angel, the well-known Dublin chain of coffee shops, has been valued at €4.2 million, newly filed company documents show.
The documents were published as part of a corporate restructuring in which the shares from one company are being exchanged for the shares in a new holding company. These show that the shares have been valued at €42,286.58 apiece.
The transaction values founder Karl Purdy’s 54 per cent stake in the business at €2.2 million, while his wife Caroline Slieman Purdy, who is also a director of the company, holds shares valued at nearly €1.7 million. The remainder of the shares, held by their daughter, are worth just over €250,000.
When contacted by The Irish Times, Mr Purdy said the restructuring was not related to any potential sale of the coffee business. He also said the valuation was a “conservative estimate” and significantly influenced by the difficult trading conditions in Dublin city centre through 2021 and 2022.
The most recently published accounts for Coffee Angel Limited show the company had accumulated profits of more than €1 million after its earnings increased to €279,670 in 2023 from €160,132 the year before.
Mr Purdy said it was likely the figures would increase again in 2024. The company hasn’t yet finalised its accounts for 2024 but he was expecting a profit for the year of between €380,000 and €400,000.
Those figures are based on a significant rise in annual revenues in the last year. Coffee Angel’s annual accounts do not publish a figure for turnover but Mr Purdy said that while revenue in 2023 was around €3.6 million, he expected the figure for 2024 to be between €4.7 million and €5 million.
“We’re in a considerably better position now [post-pandemic],” he said. “In the last 14 or 15 months, we’ve opened four new outlets, which have been self financed from turnover.”
During the disrupted years of the pandemic, Coffee Angel was hit, like many city centre businesses, by a big drop in footfall so the company set up an online business, delivering bags of beans and coffee grinders directly to customers. Mr Purdy said that at the peak of the pandemic that accounted for around 50 per cent of the company’s turnover.
The return of workers to city centre offices has increased the proportion of revenue derived from in-store purchases, he said, so the online business “still does play a significant role, but it’s probably fallen to 20 per cent compared to high street, in-shop turnover”.
“We feel like we’re in a good position going forward, notwithstanding the challenges everyone in the hospitality sector has been commenting on lately.”
Mr Purdy opened his first coffee shop in Belfast in 1997. He relocated to Dublin in 2000 and, in 2004, started selling coffee from a three-wheeled cart in Howth. Coffee Angel is about to open its ninth shop, eight of which are in Dublin with another in Monaghan town.
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