TURNOVER, staff numbers, and pre-tax earnings are all up at Quinn, with the border-straddling business confidently looking to the future despite the continuing uncertainty over Brexit.
The Quinn Industrial Holdings 2018 Performance Review, published last week, revealed the company saw it’s turnover increase 15 percent in the past year, from €209 million to €240 million. It’s the fourth year in a row with double-digit turnover increases. Meanwhile, pre-tax earnings were up by 10 percent, from €23.9 million to €26.4 million, and have increased four-fold since 2014.
The increases come against the backdrop of another year of investment by the company, investing almost €22 million last year, and over €45 million since the current owners took over the company. Staff numbers are now up to 830, a 28 percent increase since 2014.
“Having stabilised and substantially re-invested our building products and packaging businesses and sustained and grown local employment, our focus has now shifted to future development and expansion opportunities,” said QIH chief executive Liam McCaffrey.
Mr McCaffrey said the company’s building products division was planning on entering the ready-mix concrete market in Dublin, to meet the rising demand in the construction and housing market there.
In it’s packaging division it’s all about sustainability, with a recent investment leading to the development of a new manufacturing process.
“’Detecta by Quinn’, for black plastic food trays to address long standing recyclability concerns around black PET food trays,” said Mr McCaffrey. “This latest innovation provides an opportunity to divert thousands of tonnes of black plastic from ending up in landfill each year.”
Chief financial officer at QIH, Dara O’Reilly said he company was weathering the current economic climate well.
“Despite currency and Brexit uncertainty we saw continued strong earnings growth and investment in 2018. Notable headwinds in the period included a relatively weak sterling exchange rate and significant cost inflation in the latter part of the year, mainly driven by energy and fuel costs.
“Given a time lag in cost recovery from customers, these inflationary pressures had some short-term margin impact in 2018 which we expect to see reversed in 2019.”
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