Daft Media back in black with €2.66m pre-tax profits

Daft Media returned to profit last year according to newly-filed accounts. Daft Media is the company behind the Daft.ie online property site.

The company generated pre-tax profits of €2.66m last year, having posted a pre-tax loss of €2.49m in 2015, which was attributable to it writing off €5.5m owed to it by a connected business.

The growth in the property market resulted in the group’s revenues jumping 8% to €8.16m.

Daft Media’s accumulated profits stood at €3.7m at the end of last year, up from €1.4m 12 months earlier.

The company’s shareholders including founding brothers Eamonn and Brian Fallon shared a further €1.17m in dividend payouts last year. They have shared a combined €4m in dividends over the past three years.

Numbers employed by Daft Media last year rose from 39 to 44 with staff costs rising from €2.7m to €3.1m. Pay to directors totalled €279,954.

Daft Media Ltd is a subsidiary of Distilled SCH Ltd and recently-filed accounts for the parent firm show that it recorded a pre-tax loss of €1.5m last year.

That compared to a €1.3m loss for the six months to the end of December 2015, its only previous reporting period.

Distilled SCH, however, more than doubled revenues last year to €22.4m.

Distilled SCH was established in 2015 after daft.ie operations along with that of sister company, adverts.ie were merged with Schibsted Media’s Done deal.ie

The group recorded the loss as a result of non-cash amortisation of goodwill costs totalling €6m. The group also incurred €406,827 in restructuring costs.

Numbers employed by the overall group last year rose from 126 to 141 with staff costs totalling €9.3m.