The Irish arm of Cartamundi, the board game manufacturer, paid out more than €14 million in redundancy payments after it closed down its Irish operation last year, new financial accounts show.
Cartamundi Ireland made the decision to close down the factory in Waterford in March 2023, blaming the effect of the Covid 19 pandemic for the decision.
The factory had operated for more than four decades, initially under the control of MB Games, later by Hasbro, making games such as Monopoly, Twister, Connect 4, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble.
The most recently published accounts for Cartamundi Ireland show that it paid out €409,000 in redundancy costs in 2022 and €13.5 million in 2023, as it reduced its staff numbers from 314 to 81, the accounts show.
The accounts only reflect the period to the end of December 2023, after which the remaining staff would also have been made redundant, likely increasing the redundancy costs.
The factory was subsequently put up for sale with a guide price of €17.85 million.
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The financial statements show that at the end of 2023, the company was still making some games at the facility, but the number of production staff had fallen from 262 to 61, while the numbers of administration staff had dropped from 52 to 20, around 233 people in total.
That made for an average redundancy payment of around €58,000, though that figure would have varied for each member of staff based on salary and longevity.
At the time the company said that while its sales during Covid and through 2021 were strong, it had peaked in mid 2022 and fallen thereafter, which had been “aggravated by the increase in raw material and energy costs, which has impacted manufacturers globally”.
David Germis, a Cartamundi director, said that “the factory in Waterford has been suffering losses for many months now and this is not sustainable”.
The accounts show that the company had revenue of €60.6 million in 2022 – roughly in line with previous years – but that fell to €20.5 million in 2023 as it began to wind its operations down.
During that period its costs also rose, mostly related to the closure of the factory. In 2023 it made a loss for the year of €17.1 million, compared to a profit the previous year of €136,000.
The Irish arm made no dividend payment to its parent company in 2023, though it had taken out more than €30 million in dividends since 2016.
Cartamundi is a Belgian company which makes board games and playing cards. It bought the plant from Hasbro in 2015.
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