Cork’s Imperial Hotel sees pre-tax profits fall €200k

CORK’s Imperial Hotel saw its pre-tax profits fall by nearly €200,000 last year, according to latest accounts lodged with the Companies Office.

Latest available figures for the iconic hotel — which forms part of the Flynn Hotel Group — show that its pre-tax profit for 2008 amounted to €214,716; which was down from a figure of €419,177 for the previous year.

The hotel made a profit — after tax and depreciation — of €152,531 last year; amounting to an annualised drop in profit of more than €125,000. After-tax profits for 2007 amounted to €277,957.

There was also a significant fall in operating profit for the Imperial, last year, with it amounting to €421,048 — down from €558,709 in 2007.

Gross profit, however, was up from just under €3.3 million to €3.37m.

Equity shareholders’ funds amounted to €7.62m, as of the end of 2008, an increase of around €150,000 on the preceding year’s figure.

The Imperial’s net debt — as of December 31 last — stood at just under €15.55m; cut from €16.2m from the end of 2007. Net assets for the hotel rose marginally, over the course of the year, from €7.47m to €7.62m.

The Flynn Group operates four hotels around the south of the country — the Imperial; Waterford’s Park Hotel (in Dungarvan); the Newpark Hotel in Kilkenny and the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis.

While neither of the group’s two directors — brothers Allen and John Flynn — were contactable yesterday, they said (via their directors’ statement in the Imperial accounts) that they expect the Imperial “to show increased turnover and profits from its activities” this year.