O’Flaherty family share €19m windfall

THE O’Flaherty family, owners of one of the country’s biggest car dealerships, have reaped nearly €19 million in dividends from their company in the past year.

The dividend, which is up 74% year-on-year, will be spread among the three main members of the O’Flaherty family.

The biggest payout went to Michael O’Flaherty, who netted €8.6m from his 3.4m shares in the company.

Nigel O’Flaherty, the chairman of O’Flaherty Holdings, received €5.5m, while Stephen O’Flaherty took home in the region of €2.6m.

According to accounts just filed for O’Flaherty Holdings, the company made profits of €45.5m last year, the same as 2002.

Turnover for the year was down nearly 5% at €827.7m.

The company is the parent of Motor Distributors Limited, which has the Irish franchise for many top car brands, including Mercedes, Audi and Volkswagen.

Aside from its car dealerships, O’Flaherty Holdings also manufacture and sell aerial lifts in Britain and the US.

The company did not break down its turnover between its car and other businesses on the grounds that it would give away too much information to competitors.

The accounts show that apart from dividends, the directors were paid €2.2 million in fees and other emoluments - this was a 15% drop on the previous year. At the end of 2003, the company employed just over 1,000 people, half of whom were in manufacturing.

The wages and salary bill for the year came to €33m, giving an average annual wage of €32,862 per employee.

O’Flaherty’s is one of the most profitable companies in the country.

Its accounts show that it has retained profits of close to €227m and shareholders’ funds of nearly €280m.

Like all of the big car distributors in Ireland, it is a privately-owned family company.

The Renault franchise is held by the well-known Dublin businessman Bill Cullen, while Toyota is run by Tim Mahony.

Last year Frank Keane sold his rights to import and distribute BMW cars in Ireland back to the German company for a deal believed to be worth close to €100m.

There has been speculation that the other major car dealers would seek to do a similar deal, but there has been no report of movements since BMW’s takeover of Frank Keane’s franchise last April.