The chief executive of the Hodson Bay Hotel Group, Padraig Sugrue, said today that the group is on course to increase revenues to €44 - €45m in its current financial year.
Mr Sugrue said the business has recorded "a really positive" performance in the year since the end of last February with the easing of all Covid-19 restrictions.
He said that revenues will be around €44 - 45m in the 12 months to the end of February 2023.
This will be made up of "in excess of €32m" at the group's 4-star Hodson Bay hotel outside Athlone, the 4-star Sheraton hotel in Athlone town centre and the 4-star Galway Bay hotel.
Mr Sugrue said that he expects the group's Hyatt Centric hotel in Dublin's Liberties to record additional revenues "up to €11-12m".
The Hyatt Hotel is the group's first venture in the capital and Mr Sugrue said that he expects the hotel to record a profit this year after two years of breaking even.
The group opened the hotel in January 2020 before it was temporarily closed down two months later in March 2020 due to Covid-19.
"We have had a really positive year in Dublin and the Hyatt brand has really worked well," he said.
Mr Sugrue was commenting on new accounts filed by Shermond Holdings Ltd which show that pre-tax profits more than doubled from €2.3m to €4.8m in the 12 months to February 28 last.
This followed revenues almost doubling from €11.99m to €21.86m.
The accounts cover the business of the two Athlone hotels, the Galway hotel but not the Hyatt Centric hotel in Dublin.
"Taking into account that the period involved a good level of disruption due to Covid-19, we were very satisfied with the performance," Mr Sugrue said.
He said that the performance allowed us to build back the business "and we had very strong momentum built up across the markets to allow us progress further in the year since".
Mr Sugrue said that the three hotels employ over 550 while the Hyatt Centric employs an additional 140-150.
"We managed to retain a lot of management and staff which was key to be able to keep the momentum going as the re-opening took place and restrictions lifted and the Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme payments was crucial and the Government got it right," he said.
The group last year received Government grants of €484,308 and this followed €2.45m of Government grants received in fiscal 2021.
The profit also takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.25m and interest costs of €973,956.
The group recorded a post-tax profit of €3.94m after paying corporation tax of €872,653.
Staff costs last year more than doubled from €4.56m to €10.22m.
At the end of February 2022, the group had shareholder funds of €28m while cash funds increased from €7.5m to €9.35m.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
