Profits at luxury car dealership rise 79%

West Dublin-based car distributor OHM has notched up a 79 per cent rise in operating profits to €3.79 million at one of its main operating companies. Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent. reports.

Recently filed accounts for Armalou Ltd show turnover at the Saab and Jaguar dealer rising by 12 per cent to €157.49 million. Shareholder directors Gabriel Hogan and Conal O'Brien, along with chief executive Declan McCourt, received a significant increase in pay and pension contributions last year.

Their total remuneration rose to €2.62 million from €1.2 million, but their interim dividend payments fell marginally to €157,000 from €157,631. There was no final dividend.

Armalou is one of several companies in the Baldonnell-based OHM Group. The group also owns the Irish distribution rights for Cadillac, Seat and Daihatsu cars, Chrysler jeeps and DAF trucks. The latest accounts show that Arnalou made gross profits of €17 million last year, up from €16.25 million.

With pretax profits on the rise to €2.72 million from €1.51 million, the net profit rose in 2005 to €2.28 million from €1.09 million. Equity shareholders' funds at year-end stood at at €21.94 million, up from €19.84 million in 2004.

Originally based in Walkinstown, OHM Group moved its car division to Baldonnell Business Park in 2003. Along with other motor importers, it has been a beneficiary of the long-running boom in consumer spending and, until recently, a benign interest rate climate. With disposable income on the rise in the boom years, motorists have steadily increased their expenditure on luxury marques in particular.

The sector has also been a beneficiary this year of the release of billions of euro from the SSIA savings scheme. The group's chief executive, Declan McCourt, has extensive outside interests. He is chairman of the Mater Hospital Foundation and of UCD Law School Development Council and a member of the Bank of Ireland court of directors. He also sits on the board of of Fyffes, Blackrock International Land and the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

He recently became involved in a new outdoor advertising venture called Fourth Edition, a group whose backers include former Microsoft Ireland country manager Ann Riordan and Eddie Kerr, co-founder of directory inquiries firm Conduit.