Distilled Media doubles its pre-tax profits

The company behind property website Daft.ie more than doubled its pre-tax profit to almost €1.7 million in 2013, accounts for Distilled Media Group Limited filed at the Companies Office show.

Turnover increaesd 9.6 per cent to €8.35 million compared to 2012, while administrative expenses fell 2.6 per cent to less than €6.1 million. The net profit for the year arrived at €1.46 million.

Distilled Media Group employed an average of 71 people during the period, down from 75 in 2012.

As well as Daft.ie, it owns 91.1 per cent of online community company Boards.ie Limited and about 83 per cent of Adverts Marketplace Limited, the company behind digital marketing services company Adverts.ie. During 2013, the company spent €966,000 acquiring further shares in Adverts Marketplace Limited.

The directors of the Dublin-based company are Brian Fallon, Eamonn Fallon and Paul Kenny.

The group had shareholders’ funds of €3.1 million as of the end of 2013, up from €2.1 million a year earlier. No dividends were paid during the period.

The Fallon brothers are also the owners of Journal Media, the company behind TheJournal.ie and related digital media brands.

The accounts for Distilled Media show that a loan of €1 million was repaid to its parent company, DML Capital Limited, following a similar repayment of €1.27 million in the previous year. That left Distilled Media with a loan of €750,000 to its parent, a sum that is lower than its cash reserves, with the result that the company now has no net debt.

Daft.ie was originally founded by Eamonn and Brian Fallon in 1997 and the site thrived as it won the advertising custom of landlords and house sellers as tenants and buyers first began to migrate online.

In the directors’ report accompanying the accounts, the group notes that it is reliant on the advertisement of goods and services for sale on the internet, but adds that the directors “remain confident that the move towards a greater proportionate spend on internet advertising” should mitigate the risk.