The family-owned Lee Hotels Group, which operates the Mespil Hotel in Dublin 4 and the Sligo Park Hotel, has paid out combined equity dividends of €6m over the past two years.
New consolidated accounts filed by Lee Hotels UC show that pre-tax profits declined by 13% to €5.19m in the 12 months to the end of September 2024.
This followed revenues remaining flat at €24m where the group’s Mespil Hotel contributed €14.43m of revenues and the Sligo Park Hotel generated €9.59m of revenues.
The four star Sligo Park Hotel in Sligo town operates 136 bedrooms while the four star Mespil Hotel has 259 rooms.
In January 2024, Dublin City Council granted planning permission to the Mespil Hotel for an additional 47 rooms to bring the total number to 306 and included a proposal to extend the existing bar area into the existing terrace area on Burlington Road.
However, planning consultants for the hotel firm, BMA Planning, told the Council in a follow up application last December that “for operational and commercial reasons, the applicant now wishes to proceed with the bar extension in isolation from the remainder of the permitted works” and planning permission was granted in March of this year for the bar extension.
The hotel group is controlled by the Kidney family and last year Lee Hotels UC paid out €2m in dividends, following a dividend payout of €4m in the prior year.
Grace Kidney, Denis Kidney, Susanne Kidney and John Kidney each own 20% of the business with Robert Lee Kidney, Deirdre Kidney and Laoise Sareen sharing the final 20% of the business.
The directors state that trading for the year was satisfactory.
The group recorded a post tax profit of €4.47m after incurring a corporation tax charge of €712,069.
Numbers employed increased by one to 248 as staff costs increased marginally from €8.41m to €8.46m.
Directors’ pay decreased from €1.02m to €816,663.
The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.65m.
The accounts show that the cash generated from operations last year totalled €7.44m.
The group continued to invest in the business last year with €3.84m on the purchase of tangible assets and this followed an outlay of €1.66m under that heading in 2023.
The group recorded a €1.1m gain from the sale of other investments last year.
The directors state that bank loans, excluding overdrafts, was €1.46m at the year end compared to €1.99m one year prior.
Accumulated profits totalled €38.43m at the end of September last.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
