Foot and mouth still affects group

Cork: The effects of the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis was still felt by Cork Marts last year.

According to the co-op’s annual report, it recovered some of the business and increased turnover by €17.4m to €69.1m, but like other marts, it did not get back all of the throughput.

Operating income increased by 31.6% to €2.8m and operating expenses, excluding depreciation, increased by 13.5% to €2.9m. This resulted in an operating loss before depreciation of €87,000, an improvement of €338,000 on the previous year.

However, chairman Matt Murphy said this was still far short of the level of operating profits that the society should be generating. “The reality is that our core business of mart operations continues to come under pressure from a changing marketplace,” he said.

Mr Murphy assured shareholders that every effort was being made to maintain costs at a manageable level while continuing to provide a high level of service.

During 1992, a special general meeting of shareholders approved the issue of bonus shares from reserves. This was a one-for-one bonus and resulted in an additional €2.7m worth of shares being given to shareholders. The society, which has six mart centres and three property services locations, had cash reserves of just under €2m at year end. Current net assets were €1.1 million.

“This underlying strength positions us well ness,” Mr Murphy said.