The Irish arm of catalogue retailer, Argos paid out a dividend of €200 million following the company’s withdrawal from the Irish market in 2023.
The retailer shut down its 34 bricks and mortar stores here in June 2023 and was able to make the dividend payout after internal financial restructuring in November 2023.
The directors state in November 2023, the issued share capital of the company of €226.4 million was reduced by the same amount by paying off and cancelling 181.13 million of the existing issued ordinary shares.
The €226.4 million was credited to the company’s retained earnings and the company was then able to make the payout.
Predominantly due to the shutdown of the Irish business in June 2023, sales reduced at the company by 83 per cent from €120.95 million to €20.57 million in the 12 months to the end of March 2nd 2024.
The company is owned by UK retail giant, J Sainsbury plc and Argos Distributors (Ireland) Ltd was hit with a €43.4 million cost in the prior year arising from its decision to shut down its store network here with the loss of 580 jobs.
The largest component of the €43.4 million shut down cost was redundancy costs of €23.2 million.
The company’s profits in fiscal 2024 were boosted by a €6.47 million credit from the restructuring programme that was not utilised as part of the €43.4 million shut down cost from the prior year.
Staff costs reduced from €14.33 million to €4.3 million as staff numbers reduced from 612 to 161.
The directors state that the operating profit includes foreign exchange gains of €5.95 million.
At the end of March 2nd 2024 after the dividend payout offset by the post tax profit, shareholder funds reduced from €215.7 million to €17.1 million.
Separate accounts filed by the Irish unit’s immediate parent, the UK based Argos Ltd show that its pretax profits increased by 34 per cent to £37.34 million in the 12 months to the end of March 2nd 2024. The profits were boosted by dividend income of £115.66 million.
The company operates a network of 1,129 stores across the UK and the increased profits followed revenues rising by 2 per cent to £4.2 billion. Numbers employed increased by 686 from 7,045 to 7,731.
