The brothers behind daft.ie have this year shared with others a dividend pay-out of €15.37 million from their online Distilled SCH group of companies.
That is according to new accounts lodged by the group, Distilled SCH Ltd which operates the daft.ie, adverts.ie and donedeal.ie websites.
The accounts show that pre-tax profits at the group increased by 11 per cent to €4.52 million in the 12 months to the end of last December.
Revenues
This followed revenues decreasing by 4.5 per cent from €29.46 million to €28.12 million.
A note attached to the accounts states that subsequent to the end of last December the directors declared and paid a dividend of €15.376 million.
Co-founders of daft.ie, Brian and Eamonn Fallon, each have a 23.66 per cent share in the business and based on their shareholding, they would have received a pre-tax €3.63 million dividend each from the payout.
Distilled SCH Ltd was only established in 2015 after daft.ie operations along with that of sister company, adverts.ie were merged with Norway based Schibsted Media’s Done deal.ie
The deal provided Distilled and Schibsted with each having a 50 per cent shareholding in the group.
The daft.ie property website was established in 1997 by Eamonn and Brian Fallon who were only aged 20 and 15 at the time.
Today, nine out of every ten properties for sale in Ireland appear on daft.ie and the site has a unique audience of over 2.5 million users each month
The €15.37 million dividend payout followed Distilled SCH Ltd receiving dividends of €8.6 million during 2020 from subsidiary undertakings and this followed dividends received of €7.2 million in 2019.
The directors further reveal that since the end of last year, Distilled SCH Ltd received dividends of €5.12 million from Done Deal Ltd and €1.95 million from Daft Media Ltd.
On the impact of Covid-19 on the business, the directors state that: “We experienced a decline in revenues over a number of months during 2020. However, current trends suggest that revenues are recovering.”
Numbers employed increased from 126 to 133 as staff costs declined by 4.45 per cent from €11.04 million to €10.55 million.
Directors' pay
Directors’ pay dipped marginally from €467,249 to €459,358.
The company’s operating lease charges last year decreased from €943,446 to €858,697.
Distilled SCH Ltd last year recorded post tax profits of €3.08 million after paying corporation tax of €1.43 million.
The group’s shareholder funds totalled €105.5 million and cash funds more than doubled from €6.7 million to €16.39 million.
The profit last year takes account of non-cash amortisation costs of €6.2 million last year and restructuring costs of €415,426.
