Profits soar at Lyons-founded aviation firm

Profits at the aviation firm established by disgraced businessman and aviation tycoon, Anthony Lyons, soared last year by over €3.55m.

Dublin-based Santos Dumont is celebrating 10 years in business this year and new figures show the business’s two main firms were sitting on combined accumulated profits of €18.92m at the end of June 2013.

Filings just lodged with the Companies Office show the firms’ combined cash pile stood at €12.53m at the end of June last year. Santos Dumont’s business has thrived in spite of negative publicity surrounding Lyons, the firm’s founder.

He was convicted of a sex offence in July 2012.

The profits recorded in 2013 are only marginally down on the €3.6m profits recorded in 2012 as the firm has expanded to deal with increased business. Employee numbers have risen by almost 40%, from 16 to 22.

The firm technically manages more than $5bn (€3.6bn) worth of aviation assets.

However, Lyons, 52, is facing the prospect of the Court of Criminal Appeal increasing a six-month jail term imposed on him for a sexual assault on a then 27-year old woman as she walked home in the early hours of October 3, 2010.

The court heard that Lyons rugby tackled the woman to the ground within 500 yards of his Griffith Avenue home in Dublin before sexually assaulting her.

He was sentenced to six years for the offence but had five-and-a-half years suspended in July 2012. He served his six months at Wheatfield prison.

He was also ordered to pay €75,000 to the victim but the Court of Criminal Appeal heard last November the money remains in her solicitor’s client account as she had not elected to receive it.

The court has ruled the sentence was too lenient and has yet to state what the increased term will be.

The weekly profits recorded last year by the two Santos Dumont firms averaged at more than €68,000.

The court was told last November that Lyons can no longer even play a back office role in the firm he established because of what happened.

He resigned as a director soon after being charged and a Santos Dumont spokesman said yesterday: “Tony Lyons is no longer an employee, director or shareholder of Santos Dumont/ Tailwind and he has no direct or indirect involvement with the running of the business.”

The accounts filed by Tailwind Investments Ltd, formerly Santos Dumont Ltd, show that the firm recorded a profit of €2.6m last year following a profit of €2.4m in 2012.