Publishing group’s ‘Herculean effort’ sees return to profit
Accounts just filed with the Companies Office confirm that the pre-tax profits of €331,571 for Harmonia Ltd in the 12 months to the end of Dec 2010 represents a positive swing of €524,711 after the group recorded a pre-tax loss of €193,140 in 2009.
Chief executive of Harmonia Ltd, Ms Casey said that the pre-tax profits for 2011 “will be pretty similar” to 2010.
Ms Casey said that Harmonia recorded the pre-tax profit of €331,571 after revenues increased by 12% to €6.5 million in 2010.
She said: “We are really pleased with the result. We have worked very, very hard.”
Ms Casey said that this was done through ‘sweating the asset’. She said: “We had spin-offs from our magazines such as Irish Tatler Man that have been extremely successful. The spin-offs began as pilots, but that are still going very well.”
Ms Casey said that 25% of Harmonia’s revenues were generated outside Ireland in 2010, compared to 12% the previous year.
Ms Casey also confirmed plans to launch three of its titles in the British market in May. She said that this would involve recruiting new staff as the editions will be localised for that market.
She said: “Our projections are quite conservative for the UK. We are not expecting to blow the competition out of the water.”
Ms Casey said that with Ireland’s population “the market here will not sustain us going forward and our strategy is to grow out of Ireland”.
Ms Casey said U, Irish Tatler and Woman’s Way account for 75% of Harmonia’s gross margin. Woman’s Way is the best performer.
Ms Casey operated Harmonia in partnership with her late husband, Richard Hannaford, who died in October, aged 49.
Mr Hannaford was the editorial director and was the only other director along with Ms Casey.
The figures show that Irish Tatler recorded a circulation of 23,536; U had a circulation of 27,564 and Woman’s Way had a circulation of 22,197 with Food & Wine having 7,815 in circulation.
The figures show the firm had accumulated profits of €1.1m.
Direct staff costs remained static last year at €1.5m. The pre-tax profit takes account of non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €149,816. Emoluments to directors reduced from €254,213 to €185,288.
