Hodson Bay Hotel group confident of increasing revenues this year

The chief executive of the Hodson Bay Hotel group, Padraig Sugrue, said on Monday that the group was on course to increase revenues to €44 million-€45 million in its current financial year.

Mr Sugrue said the business had recorded “a really positive” performance in the year since the end of last February with the easing of all Covid-19 restrictions.

He said “the €44 million-€45 million” would include “in excess of €32 million” at the group’s Hodson Bay Hotel outside Athlone, its Sheraton Athlone Hotel in the town centre and the Galway Bay Hotel.

Mr Sugrue said he expected the group’s Hyatt Centric hotel in Dublin’s Liberties to record additional revenues of “up to €11 million-€12 million”.

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The Hyatt hotel is the group’s first venture in the capital and Mr Sugrue said he expected it to record a profit this year after two years of breaking even.

“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 holding company Shermond Holdings Ltd which show that pretax profits more than doubled from €2.3 million to €4.8 million in the 12 months to the end of February 28th last.

This followed revenues almost doubling from €11.99 million to €21.86 million.

The accounts cover the business of the two Athlone hotels and the Galway hotel but not the Hyatt Centric hotel in Dublin.

Mr Sugrue said: “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 the three hotels employed more than 550 while the Hyatt Centric employed an additional 140-150.

The group last year received Government grants of €484,308. It received €2.45 million in grants the previous year.

The profit also takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.25 million and interest costs of €973,956.

The group recorded a post-tax profit of €3.94 million after paying corporation tax of €872,653.

Staff costs last year more than doubled from €4.56 million to €10.22 million.

At the end of February 2022, the group had shareholder funds of €28 million while cash funds increased from €7.5 million to €9.35 million.