One Direction rack up €1.23m in first year after formation

Boy band One Direction, including Niall Horan from Westmeath, were sitting on over £1m (€1.23m) in cash at the end of last year, new figures show.

The Mullingar teenager only celebrated his 19th birthday on Thursday but the first annual accounts for One Direction’s main entertainment company, 1D Media Ltd, show that the band’s cash pile stood at £1.041m at the end of Dec 31.

The five-member band built up the cash reserves after forming during the 2010 X Factor series.

The abridged accounts just made available by Companies House in Britain show that the firm recorded a modest profit of £18,465 in the company’s first year.

Along with the £1m in cash, the company was owed an additional £630,827 by debtors, while it owed unidentified creditors £1.65m.

The abbreviated accounts do not disclose the revenues the firm generated in its first year or disclose how much each band member was paid. Shareholders’ funds stood at £18,470.

The band signed to Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment after their X Factor breakthrough and talking about their success this week, Cowell said: “They work really well as a group. The records are good. They’re nice guys to work with. So the world, right now, is theirs.”

The annual return for 1D Media Ltd show that Horan has a 20% equal share in the firm, along with the other band members, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson.

Horan, along with the other members of One Direction, auditioned for the 2010 X Factor as a solo artist and they were thrown together as a boy band for the show.

They failed to win the show, coming third, but their rise since has been meteoric, chalking up 12m sales in less than a year.

Horan’s own global celebrity status has made him the Irish person with the most followers on Twitter, climbing to 6.459m yesterday.

The Companies House records show that 1D Media Ltd was incorporated in Dec 2010.

The results for 1D Media Ltd for 2012 are expected to be far more impressive as the band’s debut album Up All Night was released in Britain in November of last year.

This year, the boy band have already generated A$15m (€12.1m) in ticket sales for their Australian and New Zealand tours that will not commence until September of next year.

Speaking in June, Sony Music UK chairman, Nick Gatfield talked about the economic potential of One Direction. “What you might not know about One Direction is that they already represent a $50m business. And that’s a figure we expect to double next year.”

The band’s achievements include a Brit Award, while they recently scooped three MTV Video Music Awards, the latest step in conquering the US market that alluded other boybands, including Take That, Westlife and Boyzone.

A One Direction tour date for New York’s Madison Square Garden sold out in 30 seconds this year.