A €2 MILLION interest charge left O'Malley Homes, the builder engaged in a planning row over a site on Dublin's upmarket Shrewsbury Road, with a €980,000 loss last year, the latest figures show.
Accounts just lodged with the Companies' Registration Office show that O'Malley Homes and Development Ltd had gross profits of €1.8 million in 2007, and made an operating surplus of €1.4 million. However, an interest bill of close to €2.4 million left the family-owned O'Malley Homes and Development with a loss of €980,834 for the year. The accounts show that it lost €433,967 in 2006.
The interest was paid on a bank loan which the accounts show totalled €49.3 million last year, up from €42.8 million in 2006.
The company gave floating and fixed charges over its assets as security for the loan, and the accounts state that "the directors have also signed personal guarantees in respect of the loan".
O'Malley Homes, led by founder Frank O'Malley, owns the former Chester Beatty Library site on Shrewsbury Road, one of Dublin's more expensive addresses.
It bought the property for €14 million in 1999 when the Chester Beatty Library moved to its current home in Dublin Castle. The company has been seeking planning permission for various types of residential development on the site since 1999, but has met with objections from residents groups.
O'Malley Homes ended the year with shareholders' funds €936,146 in the red. At the close of 2006, they stood at €44,688. The accounts show it had land valued at almost €20 million, while work in progress was worth €9 million.
A balance sheet lodged for a linked company, O'Malley Group (Homes and Developments) Ltd, shows its shareholders' funds stood at €3.9 million at the end of last year, down from €5 million 12 months earlier.
