Turnover at nursing home operator, Mowlam Healthcare, doubled to €8.5 million last year while the company's losses dropped dramatically during the same period, the latest figures show.
Mowlam is one of a number of companies that are active in using Government tax breaks to develop private nursing homes.
Returns to the Companies Registration Office (CRO) show that turnover in the year to end of December 2004 grew to €8.55 million from €4.7 million in 2003.
The nursing home developer's operating losses dropped from €462,300 in 2003 to €71,094 in 2004. The total loss for the financial year dropped to €98,000 in 2004 from €472,000 a year earlier.
The balance sheet shows that shareholders' funds stood at €1.2 million at the end of 2004, a slight increase on the €1.1 million it had 12 months earlier.
Last year was the second in a row in which the Limerick-based group doubled its turnover. It was also the second in which it made a loss.
The company had profits of €10,300 in 2002.
Its cashflow also improved during 2004. The figures show that net cash outflow from its activities (that is running nursing homes) was €66,181 compared with €405,000 the previous year.
Mowlam has been at the forefront of the growth in private nursing homes over the last eight years which was sparked by the introduction of tax breaks in 1997.
It has 10 nursing homes and retirement villages in Limerick, Galway, Dublin, Kilkenny, the north west and the midlands, and is actively seeking new properties.
It is the group behind the retirement village that the Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, recently opened in Moate, Co Westmeath.
The development had a reported price tag of €12 million. Figures like that are not reflected in its balance sheet, presumably because the group leases the properties and does not own them.
The group has been expanding rapidly since the beginning of the decade and has grown from just three properties four years ago.
The group is the developer and operator of its nursing homes, but does not own them.
Each of the homes are paid for and owned by groups of private investors brought together by Mowlam. They put up the cash to develop the homes in return for the tax break.
The group then leases the properties from them, and buys out the investors after 10 years, the period for which they have to keep their money locked in to the project in order to qualify for the tax break.
The main figures behind Mowlam are Limerick businessmen John Shee and Joseph Hanrahan. They control 1.3 million of the group's 1.577 million issued shares, over 80 per cent of the company, through another vehicle, Cracken Properties (Holdings) Ltd, over which they share 100 per cent control.
Both men are active in a range of businesses, largely connected with property development, including holiday homes, which also benefit from tax breaks, and have made a cross over from that field to private nursing homes.
