McDonoghs show confidence in property market with €24m investment

One of Galway’s oldest and most prominent companies, Thomas McDonogh & Sons, has shown a major vote of confidence in the property market, after spending €24 million on investments in the past year.

And the company seems to have turned a corner after boosting profits to €1.2m, from just €51,000 the previous year.

The McDonogh group now has investments in Ireland and mainland Europe which have been valued at more than €137 million, and land and buildings worth a further €15m.

According to consolidated accounts just filed with the Companies Registration Office, the company made a profit of almost €1.2 million for the year-ended September 2012 – up from just €51,000 the previous year in 2011. In 2010, it recorded a profit of €183,000, while in 2009, there was a loss of more than €5.3m.

However, while the company made a €1.2m profit for 2012, a €1m write-down in the value of the investments was applied to the accounts.

The group now has assets totalling almost €159m, while creditors (the majority are banks) are owed almost €86m, resulting in shareholders’ funds of almost €73m.

During 2012, the group added just over €24m worth of property to its investment portfolio.

The group had 35 employees on its books in 2012, down from 42 the previous year.

In 2012, the group generated almost €5m in income through its wholesale trade business, and a further €7.5m in rental income (the majority of which was from European investments).

The most high-profile building in the company’s portfolio is on Avenue de Beaulieu in Brussels, which is occupied by the European Commission.

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