The Business Post Group lost almost €2.9 million in 2023, but it says accounts for last year will show a €2 million profit.
Revenues at the owner of the Business Post newspaper rose 14 per cent in 2023, to €23.1 million from €20.3 million the previous year, according to its latest accounts.
The group lost €2.88 million, compared with a shortfall of €1.2 million in 2022. This was partly down to the cost of raising cash for acquisitions, according to group chief executive Enda O’Coineen.
He confirmed “2025 profits prior to adjustment came in at €2 million", which the group reinvested. Accounts for 2024 will show that the organisation returned to profit that year, he added.
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In May of last year, the Business Post bought the Irish Management Institute (IMI), a professional body that trains company directors and executives.
A note to its 2023 accounts states it has yet to complete accounting for the combined businesses, as the deal to buy the IMI was completed close to the date on which the board was due to approve the company’s 2024 financial statements.
The note adds that “further disclosures” will be made in the group’s next financial statements.
Increased costs, including energy costs, hit trading in the early part of 2023, according to the directors’ report, which O’Coineen and chief operations officer Colm O’Reilly included with the accounts.
“Trading was sluggish in the first half but recovered well in the second half,” said O’Coineen on Sunday.
Along with the Business Post and the IMI, the group owns market researcher Red C and events firm iQuest. It also owns Relish, a customer data and insights firm which it bought in 2023.
Sweden’s Bonnier News, Scandinavia’s biggest media organisation, took a stake in the Business Post Group Ltd in 2023, a move that the Irish firm predicted would aid growth.
According to the directors’ report, the board anticipated the relationship with Bonnier would help accelerate the group’s move to digital from traditional publishing.
The accounts show the Scandinavian publisher invested €6 million in the Business Post through preference shares.
Preference shares are a type of loan, but in this case, Bonnier can convert those shares it holds in the Business Post to ordinary shares.
O’Coineen said the Business Post was “tracking well” for 2026.
He predicted revenues would reach €40 million, “a five-fold increase in as many years through acquisitions and organic growth”.
