Revenues surge at Louis Fitzgerald group to €80m as underlying profits increase sharply

The Imperial Hotel in Cork is one of three hotels in the group. Picture: Denis Minihane

Pre-tax profits at the main firm behind the Louis Fitzgerald hospitality group last year dipped by 3.5% to €16.34m.

The pub, restaurant and hotel group owns the likes of Kehoe's and the Stag's Head in Dublin and the Imperial Hotel in Cork. New accounts filed by the group’s holding company, Burtse Ltd, show that the business's pre-tax profits declined marginally after revenues increased by 45% or €25m from €55.75m to €80.84m.

However, the group’s underlying profit was up sharply last year as the pre-tax profits of €16.94m for fiscal 2022 were skewed by Government grant income of €5.87m. Last year, Government grants totalled €241,538.

The scale of the Fitzgerald operation in 2023 comes 55 years after 23-year-old Louis Fitzgerald moved from Tipperary to Dublin to purchase his first pub on Dublin’s Townsend Street which had then weekly revenues of £80, quickly rising to £560 per week.

The directors state that the group today "is in a strong financial position” and “management aims to increase the profitability of the company through increasing turnover and management of its operating costs”. The accounts show that the business repaid loans of €8.45m during the year and this followed loan repayments of €22.8m in the prior year.

The directors say Louis Fitzgerald and his wife, Helen, that last year's gross profit margin increased from 70.8% to 73.6%. The two received zero pay last year from Burtse Ltd. They lead the family-owned Louis Fitzgerald group where the Fitzgerald adult children now take a prominent role in the running of the business.

The group’s businesses include well-known Dublin City centre pubs Bruxelles, The Gin Palace, Grand Central and Quays Temple Bar. The group also operates An Poitin Stil, The Laurels, Palmerstown House, The Roost, Annie May’s, Carroll’s, The Arlington Hotel and The Louis Fitzgerald Hotel.

Numbers employed by the business increased by 70 from 841 to 911 as staff costs decreased by 20% from €16.44m to €13.13m. Burtse recorded the pre-tax profit after taking account of non-cash depreciation costs of €3.46m.

Burtse enjoyed operating profits of €16.34m and paid out €173,044 in interest payments which were down sharply on the interest payments of €591,290 in 2022. The hospitality group recorded a post-tax profit of €13.97m after incurring a corporation tax charge of €2.37m.

The business had shareholder funds of €86.17m including accumulated profits of €41.83m. The shareholder funds also included a revaluation reserve of €25.8m. Burtse’s cash funds almost halved from €22.66m to €11.53m.