Profits at the Supermac's restaurant chain rose 140 per cent to €3.96 million.
Newly filed accounts for the Galway-based company, which operates the biggest indigenous fast food business, show that its turnover rose last year to €23.15 million from €20.25 million.
Pretax profit rose to €3.96 million from €1.65 million in 2003. After taxes of €925,391, the net profit of €3.04 million brought profit retained at the end of the year to €16.4 million.
Supermac's is controlled by Athenry-based businessman Pat McDonagh, who also has a number of valuable property interests and a big pub business in the US.
While the firm's accounts indicate that its year-on-year financial performance improved considerably, a significant portion of the pretax profits were derived from two non-trading items.
The company received deposit interest of €1.13 million and investment income of €611,223.
While the chain has 65 restaurants in the Republic with an outlet in almost every county, many of the outlets are run by independent owners on a franchise basis. Supermac's Ireland Ltd employed 498 people in the year and paid them wages of €6.62 million.
The company paid no dividend last year - compared with dividends of €375,600 in 2003. Its directors - Mr McDonagh and Úna McDonagh - took a cut in their remuneration to €10,542 from €25,419. However, the accounts indicate that Mr McDonagh received rental income of €1.87 million in respect of property leased by Supermac's Ireland Ltd.
The company owed Mr McDonagh a sum of €511,806 at the end of 2004. Its creditors included an amount of €1.21 million owed by Funworld (Ireland) Ltd, a related company with common directors.
According to the accounts, the company also has an investment of €21.4 million in a US holding company, Claddagh Irish Pub, which owns 16 Irish bars in the US. The official website for this company says it has plans to open another four bars in the near future.
The sum that Supermac's had invested in Claddagh at the end of 2003 was €16.02 million, indicating that the company put €5.37 million into the US business during 2004.
In the same period, the amount of cash that it held in the bank was reduced to €835,893 from €5.62 million.
