Desmond nets €5.4m in UK dividend

Concert promoter Denis Desmond has added to his fortune by receiving a sizeable chunk of a €21mdividend from the UK music venue business he co-owns.

New accounts show that Academy Music Group Ltd last year paid a dividend of £17.2m (€20.9m) to its shareholders.

Mr Desmond — through his joint venture with Live Nation, the LN Gaiety Holdings Ltd entity — owns 26% of Academy Music and would have received over €5.4m from the dividend payout.

When asked to comment on the 2013 dividend windfall yesterday, Mr Desmond said: “We got a few bob last year. It makes up for the other ones. We did well — it was a good year.”

The dividend Mr Desmond received is in addition to the £9.6m he shared in dividend payouts from his other UK enterprise, Festival Republic, in 2012 and 2011.

The accounts for Academy Music Group show it sustained a slight decline in pre-tax profits last year from £4.46m to £4.3m.

Revenues at the group dipped by 1%, from £32.7m to £32.3m, in the 12 months to December 31, 2013.

The Academy Music business operates from 19 venues across the UK, including the O2 Brixton Academy and the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Mr Desmond said he was “very happy” with how the business performed last year. “We have a great team,” he said.

“It is a good, solid business and live music is performing well in the UK at the moment.”

Mr Desmond said the venues would have attracted in excess of 1m through the doors last year.

Mr Desmond, also a managing director of Dublin-based MCD, said Academy Music is still performing strongly in 2014, with revenues up around 5% on 2013.

Last week, MCD announced that Oxegen would not be returning this year.

Mr Desmond said the festival may return next year if the right acts are available to play. “There is no point putting on something just for the sake of it. If we can identify a good line-up for next year, we will run it,” he said.

MCD is not required to file annual accounts as it has unlimited status.