Coppers paid out €45.9m dividend last year
THE firm behind Dublin’s bustling Copper Face Jacks nightspot paid out a €45.95m dividend last year.
Accounts for Breanagh Catering Ltd reveal the dividend was declared on December 20, 2018, and paid to its parent company before January 31 last year.
Former garda Cathal Jackson owns Breanagh Catering Ltd and its parent company, Breanagh Catering Holdings.
Mr Jackson, who turns 65 this month, has been content to see the cash mountain at Breanagh Catering Ltd rise to €63.7m before the €45.95m dividend was paid.
The move to pay out the dividend came ahead of an announced sale of the Copper Face Jacks business in March last year with industry sources at the time speculating the business might realise €40m.
But staff were told in a memo last November that the Harcourt Street nightspot was no longer for sale as Mr Jackson “has decided to stay actively involved in the business”.
The nightclub business is among the high-profile commercial casualties of the Covid-19 pandemic with the venue’s doors shut since March.
No re-opening date has been pencilled in although the hotel that houses the club, the Jackson Court hotel, is due to re-open its doors next Monday.
The new accounts show the nightclub’s pre-tax profits fell 6pc from €4.09m to €3.82m in the 12 months to the end of January 2019.
Revenue dipped 9.5pc from €14.6m to €13.2m.
Some €11.6m was generated in nightclub and bar receipts.
Numbers employed by the business last year fell from 196 to 183 as staff costs, including directors’ pay, reduced from €5.14m to €4.29m.