Harcourt Development Group, the hotel company founded by Donegal-born developer Pat Doherty, recorded pretax profits of just over €180 million last year.
New consolidated accounts filed by Marzocco UC show group profits rose mainly from it booking a €174.15 million gain from the sale of its shopping centre network here and associated debt restructuring.
The group recorded pretax profits of €180.77 million as revenues declined by 32 per cent from €129.3 million to €87.55 million, mainly due to the exit from its shopping centre business.
Last year, a fund managed by Davy Real Estate acquired Harcourt’s six regional shopping centres in a reported €74 million deal.
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Harcourt Developments owned the shopping centres through its Lindat subsidiary and the directors state that “the sale of Lindat and the associated debt restructuring led to a significant gain in the group’s 2023 results”.
The results follow a pretax profit of €7.58 million in 2022.
The directors state that the shopping centre sale released all of the group’s main lender’s, Luxembourg-based EPF, security except for the Bahamas. Residual EPF debt has been transferred to a related party.
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The group operates five hotels including the five-star Lough Eske Castle Hotel in Co Donegal and the Carlisle Bay in Antigua. “During 2023 all our hotels benefited from a full year of trading without restrictions and occupancy numbers and room rates returned to pre-pandemic levels,” say the directors.
“As a result, the hotels enjoyed a strong year in terms of revenue and profitability and this trend has continued into 2024. We are now actively planning upgrade and extension projects for several of our hotels to cater for the additional demand.”
The directors state that overall the group “performed largely in line with budget from a trading perspective for 2023 resulting in an operating profit of €33.69 million before the impact of debt restructuring, asset revaluations and interest costs”.
The accounts show the group incurred €13 million in interest charges and a loss of €16.28 million on asset revaluations.
They state that “overall, the group continued to generate sufficient cash surplus to cover its operating costs and to meet the obligations to all of its banks”.
Numbers employed by the group declined from 530 to 474 in 2023 as staff costs reduced from €16.57 million to €14.9 million. Directors’ pay totalled €748,368.
The chief factor behind the drop related to revenues from rental income, service charge income and property management fees, declining from €37.39 million to €17.04 million.
The group generated revenues of €45.89 million from development and €24.28 million from hotels.
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