The company behind the Five Guys restaurant franchise here returned to profit last year, posting earnings after tax of €54,816.
Sons of billionaire financier, Dermot Desmond, Brett, Ross and Dery brought the US fast casual food franchise here in 2016.
New accounts for the Desmond family’s Anart Restaurants Ltd show the profit compares to losses after tax of €315,934 in the prior 12 months.
Today, Five Guys operates four outlets around Dublin at South Great George’s Street, the Pavilions shopping centre in Swords, the Dundrum shopping centre and one at Liffey Valley.
Numbers employed by the business declined by five to 102, made up of 94 in store crew and eight in management.
The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €412,474 as the book value of the company’s tangible assets reduced to €2.12 million.
It also reduced the company’s accumulated losses to €2.69 million at the end of last June.
A note to the accounts adds that “the group will not seek repayment for the amounts owed amounting to €4.14m (down from €4.32m in 2023) until the company has sufficient resources to meet this obligation”.
The company’s cash funds increased sharply from €40,133 to €258,013.
Anart Restaurants Ltd is a subsidiary of the Jersey based Hasco Ltd. The accounts state that the consolidated accounts for Hasco are not publicly available. A note attached to the accounts states that the ultimate controlling party is the Desmond family.
Five Guys was first established by the Murrell family in 1986 in the US state of Virginia.
The Desmond brothers will be hoping to repeat the success of the Five Guys UK arm.
The first Five Guys in the UK opened in Covent Garden in 2013 through a joint venture between the Murrells and Sir Charles Dunstone.
The most recent accounts for Five Guys JV Ltd for 2023 show that it recorded pretax profits of £8 million after revenues had increased by 14 per cent to £316.4 million.
Numbers employed totalled 4,959 and the franchise increased the number of restaurants to 163 in 2023 in the UK with plans to open a further 10 in 2024.
