Kenmare Park has record year
THE five star Park Hotel in Kenmare enjoyed the best year in its over 30 year history in 2017 according to new results filed by the company that operates the luxury destination.
The hotel’s majority shareholder John Brennan said that 2017 had been a record year for the hotel topping its previous best year, 2007.
Recent accounts for the hotel showed that accumulated profits at the Park jumped by almost €472,000 in 2016 with the company’s shareholder fund reaching €3.99 million at the end of 2016.
Shares in the hotel are divided between John Brennan who has a 51 per cent stake; Glen Dimplex CEO Fergal Naughton who has a 31 per cent share and Francis Brennan who controls 19 per cent of the business.
Francis Brennan gave up complete control of the company in late 2016 having previously held 100 per cent control of the business since 1986.
Francis Brennan remains fully involved in the day to day management and marketing of the hotel.
The 2016 debt-equity investment deal - which saw Francis Brennan’s brother John take a shareholding in the hotel company for the first time – kept the hotel in the control of the Brennan family and allowed the company to eliminate bank debt it had taken on following the development of a luxury apartment development near the hotel in 2008.
Following on from the investment deal €2.6 million is also being spent on a refurbishment of parts of the hotel’s interior.
The 46 bedroom Kenmare Park currently employs 72 people and last year it marked its 120th anniversary having originally opened as a Great Southern Hotel in 1897.
Francis Brennan opened it as the re-branded Kenmare Park Hotel in 1980 and purchased it outright in 1986.
The hotel has also recently appointed a new General Manager with the internationally experienced Gerard Denneny announced as the new GM of the Park in February.