Single Dublin pizza outlet paid €1.2m dividend to parent chain

Accounts filed for Base Control Management, a key part of the chain’s corporate structure, show the group’s well established outlets in the Dublin suburbs of Ballsbridge and Terenure are the main cash cows, contributing combined dividends of €2m to the group in 2023.

Inter-connected sets of accounts for companies within the group show Base Pizza Ballsbridge provided a dividend of €1.2m to the company that also operates an outlet in the nearby Dublin suburb of Terenure. Between them they paid €2m up the Base Control Management entity.

That compared to a €200,000 dividend from a branch in Glenageary and €100,000 from Base Pizza Stillorgan Limited. The group also has outlets in Lucan in west Dublin, Killester in the north of the city, Stillorgan in the south and Greystones in Wicklow.

The Base Control Management accounts show it employed 85 staff in 2023 and payroll costs were €2.89m.

The full year accounts for Base Control Management show a substantial swing from a loss of €350,000 in 2022 to a profit for the year of €1.3m in 2023.

Those numbers pushed retained earnings at the group from a deficit 2022 to a small surplus at the end of last year.

The accounts just filed for Base Control also show a balance owed at the end of 2023 to Loyola Ireland Management Holdings Limited of just under €710,000.

That followed investment into the business by Loyola in 2022 when it had become an 80pc shareholder, alongside the chain’s founder Shane Crilly’s 20pc stake.

Loyola is the investment vehicle of Stephen Cooney and Brian O’Malley, who own or have stakes in a number of business in the capital including The Bath and Old Spot pubs in Dublin 4.

The 2022 restructuring at Base involved a new chief executive, Clyde Jamison, who was a former country manager in Ireland for Domino’s, joining the business.