Lisney increases operating profits by 81% despite dip in gross profit

THE newly appointed managing director of property firm Lisney, James Nugent, said yesterday he is satisfied with the company’s performance last year.

Mr Nugent was commenting on accounts just filed by Lisney Ltd which show that the firm increased its operating profits by 81% from €466,114 to €846,149 in the 12 months to the end of March last year.

The property company increased its operating profits in spite of the firm’s gross profit decreasing by 4% from €8.9m to €8.5m last year.

The abridged accounts do not provide a turnover figure. However, Mr Nugent said that revenues declined by less than 5% while operating expenses declined by 7% from €8.5m to €7.8m.

Only taking up his new role this week, Mr Nugent said: “Given what the industry is going through, we are satisfied with how the company performed last year.”

The firm’s pre-tax profit increased by 30% from €427,793 to €560,132 and the lower increase in pre-tax profit compared with operating profit is attributable to the company taking a property writedown of €269,738.

Mr Nugent said that the firm will record a profit in the current financial year.

He said: “We have clawed back some market share and revenues will be much the same. It is a difficult industry to be in at the moment.

Mr Nugent said: “We have very good fiscal management. We continue to be in profit, have increased cash and paid down debt and they are all very positive.”

According to the directors’ report: “It was a challenging year for the company as a result of continuing stress in the property market which has seen us focus increasingly on providing recovery services.

“We feel that managing property and active asset management dealing with distressed situations will become more a focus for our clients.”

“The directors expect existing market conditions to remain for the foreseeable future, but are confident that they have sufficient resources in place, namely our talented and creative people, to deal with them.”

The company’s cash last year increased from €190,127 to €355,362 while the company’s shareholder funds at the end of last year stood at €1.94m.

The numbers employed at the firm last year declined from 103 to 96 with employment costs declining from €5.6m to €4.9m.

Remuneration for directors reduced from €1.3m to €1m.