Regional newspaper owner turns its first profit

The media firm established by aviation entrepreneur Domhnal Slattery has recorded a profit for the first time.

Accounts just filed to the Companies Office by the firm that publishes the Clare People newspaper, Clare College News Ltd, show that the firm recorded a post-tax profit of €31,841 in the 12 months to the end of Dec 2011.

The firm’s accumulated losses have reduced sharply from €4.92m to €1m in 2011. This is understood to arise mainly from Mr Slattery and co-founder, Sean Lyne writing off loans advanced to the firm.

Previous accounts show that the two businessmen had advanced interest free loans of €3.6m to the end of Sept 2009.

Mr Slattery’s main business focus is aircraft leasing firm, Avolon. It has raised $5bn (€3.9bn) in equity and debt and had a committed fleet of 167 aircraft at the end of 2012.

The accounts disclose that Ennis native, Mr Slattery now has overall control of Clare College News Ltd after developer and hotelier, Mr Lyne, disposed of his shareholding to Mr Slattery in Dec 2011.

A note attached to the 2011 accounts confirms that the directors have successfully renegotiated the company’s short-term loan to a more sustainable long-term arrangement and have renegotiated terms with the company’s principal trade creditors which will assist financial performance and cash flow.

The paper is to celebrate its eighth anniversary next month and yesterday, editor of the Clare People and company director, Emmet Moloney said: “I am positive about the Clare People’s future and with good reason.

“The main factor behind the company’s progress over the past two years has been the unstinting and constant support of our chairman Domhnal Slattery, without whom the company and the jobs it provides in Co Clare would simply not be here.”

The numbers employed by the firm have decreased from 28 in Nov 2010 to 13 today.

Mr Moloney said: “We are attempting to survive the worst recession this country has ever seen, while in the middle of a technological revolution that has challenged the relevance of newspapers and the methods in which news is delivered.

“Yet we are still here, the only start-up regional newspaper of the Celtic Tiger boom to have survived.”

Mr Moloney said that this, along with the attitude and commitment of the paper’s hardworking staff; the key relationships with Johnston Press and Bank of Ireland and the weekly support of readers and advertisers convinces him that the paper will survive.

He also revealed that the paper recently signed a five-year contract extension with printers, Johnston Press

“While we are only eight years old, that has given us many advantages with which we can continue to fight the good fight.

“One of those is our flexibility which is a must for any business right now. It is that flexibility that has enabled us to change much of what we do and how we do it.

“It is that flexibility that allowed us to attack our cost base and be one of the few newspapers in Ireland to post a profit in 2011.”

Mr Moloney declined to state the paper’s current circulation stating that the figures are commercially sensitive.

“We are no longer with ABC for the purpose of audited figures because it was a cost we couldn’t really justify.

“We are not the only newspaper in Ireland to make that commercial decision recently.”