Dividend of over €3m for developer

PROPERTY DEVELOPER Ken Rohan took a €3.2 million dividend from his main trading company last year after its profits quadrupled to €32 million.

Accounts just filed for Mr Rohan's Airspace Investments Ltd show that the company made €40.5 million in profits from property sales and rental income in the 12 months ended on November 30th, well ahead of the €13.8 million it earned in 2006.

Airspace owns the Grand Canal Plaza office complex in Dublin, which houses BT Ireland's HQ, and has stakes in a number of business parks around the capital as well as a range of other interests in Ireland, Britain and Barbados.

The company received €934,000 in interest payments, but its own interest bill was €4.5 million, leaving it with a pretax surplus of almost €37 million, compared with €10.3 million the previous year.

After-tax profits were €31.8 million. A near-€500,000 contribution from minority interests boosted this to €32.3 million for the year, four times the €8.2 million it recorded in 2006.

Airspace paid its shareholders a dividend of €3.19 million, €3,069.07 a-share. The company's annual return shows that Mr Rohan owns 1,039 of the group's 1,040 issued shares. His fellow director, Monica Daly, owns the remaining share.

The directors, Mr Rohan, Ms Daly, Thomas Cryan and Jamie Rohan, were paid a total of €812,627 in salaries, while the company contributed €31,853 to their pensions. Airspace paid its 14 employees a total of €2 million last year.

The firm paid a dividend of €1.9 million in the 12 months ended November 30th 2006.

Its turnover grew to €63.8 million from €62.3 million. Property sales accounted for €54.8 million of this, while the balance was made up of rental income.

The value of the group's properties increased to €151 million at the end of its financial year from €143.5 million 12 months earlier.

The company retained €29 million for the 2007 financial year, boosting shareholders' funds to €163.8 million.

It increased its borrowings, made up largely of bank debt, to €69 million from €56 million.

The directors' report for the year warns that they consider the "slowdown in economic activity, the downturn in the property market and potential increases in interest rates as the principal risk factors facing the group".

The accounts were filed before last week's 0.5 per cent cut in interest rates.