Staff at Storyful, the Rupert Murdoch-owned, Dublin-headquartered social media newswire, have shared bonus payments of €1.134 million over the past two years. This was in spite of the company being loss-making over that period.
New accounts show that staff at the slimmed down Storyful Ltd shared bonuses of €581,415 in the 12 months to the end of June last, following a payout of €553,339 under the same heading in 2021.
Accounts for the News Corporation-owned company show pretax losses last year narrowed by 41 per cent from €6.77 million to €3.968 million.
Revenues dipped marginally from €4.57 million to €4.48 million in the 12 months to the end of June last.
The number of staff employed at the Irish unit reduced from 89 to 62 last year as staff costs reduced from €7.05 million to €5.6 million, which included the bonus.
Not all of Storyful’s global revenues are included in the results and relate only to the Irish entity, Storyful Ltd.
The firm’s administrative expenses reduced from €9.27 million to €6.37 million and the directors state that these “continued to be tightly controlled and are driven primarily by payroll costs and amortisation”.
The business recorded the pretax loss last year after booking combined non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €1.12 million. It also booked a loss of €519,653 on the sale of an asset and a €191,655 loss in currency exchange differences. And it incurred €437,079 in operating lease costs.
The company did benefit from an R&D tax credit of €112,632 and a €114,986 gain on a lease retirement.
Numbers in editorial reduced from 42 to 31 during the period.
Former RTÉ Prime Time presenter Mark Little set up the company in 2010 with Mr Little and the company’s other investors selling it to News Corp for €18 million in December 2013.
A note attached states that the directors have considered the losses to date and report that they are satisfied that appropriate measures have been taken to bring about the company’s profitability.
Salaries and fees to directors increased from €530,505 to €620,378. In a post-balance-sheet event in December last, the company issued 3,000 ordinary shares for €3 million. It closed the year with accumulated losses of €52.7 million.
