Serial investor Donagh Barry, of the Barry’s Tea family, earned a €4 million payout from his education group before a merger with a popular Dublin grinds school last year.
Barry and education entrepreneur Chris Lauder formed Axis Education Group in March last year as part of an arrangement to merge a number of colleges they owned.
The new group, comprising Dublin Academy of Education, Independent College, International House Dublin and Public Affairs Ireland, involved Lauder’s business being folded into Barry’s existing firm Indigo Ventures Limited.
New financial accounts for the company show it made a €4 million payout before the merger was completed.
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A spokesman for Axis Education Group confirmed this dividend was paid to a company called Wardmay Holdings Limited, which is co-owned by Barry and Rosemary Barry.
Barry bought Independent College and International House, based on Foley Street, Dublin 1, from Independent News & Media in 2014. His acquisition of Public Affairs Ireland was completed during the pandemic.
Before the merger, Barry held a minority stake in Lauder’s Dublin Academy.
New consolidated accounts for Axis Education Group show it is majority-controlled by Barry’s company, Wardmay Holdings Limited, which owns 80 per cent of the group. Lauder’s firm, Stonemall Limited, owns the remaining 20 per cent.
Padraig Hourigan, the former head of Independent College who also owned a stake in the business, sold his shareholding in the school as part of the merger deal.
Hourigan remained with the company to act as its new director of strategy and partnerships, but holds no stake in the business any longer.
In March 2025, when the merger was confirmed, Lauder said the new group would have an annual student headcount of close to 20,000 and annual revenues of €20 million.
The latest financial accounts show it booked combined revenue of €22.3 million in the 18-month period to June 2025, compared to €17.4 million in the 2023 calendar year.
Between the two accounting periods, the firm’s operating margin contracted from 13.8 per cent to 2.8 per cent as operating profits declined from €2.4 million to €627,000. After-tax profits fell from €2 million to €676,000.
A spokesman for the group said the operating profits were “not directly comparable” as they related to a 12-month and an 18-month period.
“This additional six-month period includes a quieter stretch in the academic calendar; a seasonal pattern anticipated by the business and typical across the education sector,” he said.
The spokesman said “the business remains on a strong trajectory with healthy underlying operating profits”.
Following the payment of the €4 million dividend, the company booked a shareholders’ deficit of €131,000.
The new accounts also showed staff costs for the 18-month period were €3.5 million, but the average number of staff employed by the group each month in the period fell from 212 to 198.
Lauder’s Dublin Academy has become one of the State’s fastest-growing grind schools in recent years.
Last year, Axis Education Group announced plans to expand the school through a €7 million investment in Blackrock, Co Dublin, where it plans to expand enrolment from 375 to 500 students.
The school, where full-time students pay more than €10,000 a year, said it planned to move to the old Zurich Insurance building and retrofit the property into a 2,600sq foot campus.
