Energis posts loss of €2.86m pre-tax

Energis Ireland, the telecoms firm which was formerly known as Nevada tele.com, reported a €2.86 million pre-tax loss for the year to the end of March 2003.

The firm, which supplies telecoms services to a range of corporate customers in the Republic, made a loss of €32.8 million in the previous year due to writing off the value of its telecoms assets.

Accumulated losses at Energis stand at €60.6 million and the firm's auditors, KPMG, noted that a situation existed that may require the convening of an extraordinary general meeting.

However, the results show that the company has recovered from a restructuring during 2003, when British firm Energis assumed full control after buying out a 50 per cent share owned by the electricity company Viridian.

Turnover at the firm, which employs about 50 staff in Dublin, increased to €33.2 million, up from €24.6 million a year earlier.

At the end of March 2003 Energis employed 47 staff, compared to the 68 staff it employed a year earlier. This enabled the firm to cut staffing costs to €3.06 million from €3.3 million.

The firm incurred redundancy and other restructuring costs of €713,022 during the year. The results also confirm that the former directors of Nevada tele.com, Mr Leslie Harris and Mr Gerard O'Keeffe, resigned in January 2003, but no details of director payoffs are supplied.

Viridian, which sold its 50 per cent stake in Energis for a nominal sum in 2003, also waived €6.98 million of shareholder debt that it was owed, according to the Energis accounts, which were filed with the companies registration office recently.

Last week Energis Ireland appointed a new general manager, Mr Conal Henry, the former commercial director of Ryanair, to help build the firm. Prior to working at Ryanair, Mr Henry was chief financial officer at Newco (a joint venture IT company set up between AIB and Bank of Ireland).

Energis Ireland is part of the British Energis group, which was taken private in July 2002 by a private company Chelys Ltd - which in turn is owned by a consortium of financial institutions.

A spokesman for Energis Group said the Irish operation would report more up to date financial results later this month.