Mannok earnings hit €31m despite disruption

Dara O’Reilly

Jon Ihle

April 08 2021 09:26 PM

People eating more meals at home due to pandemic lockdowns helped building materials and packaging company Mannok increase its earnings in 2020, despite disruption to the construction-facing business from mandatory closures and Brexit.

The company, formerly known as Quinn Industrial Holdings, announced earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of €31.1m, up from €26.6m in 2019, on revenues of €233m, down slightly from €234m the year before.

"Our packaging business, which is mainly food packaging, operated throughout the pandemic and increased turnover," chief financial officer Dara O'Reilly told the Irish Independent. "Fundamentally more people are eating from home and we were able to ramp up production to meet demand."

Covid-19 and Brexit had a negative impact on the building products business in 2020, however, with mandatory closures of manufacturing facilities and increased costs for exports to Britain.

"Covid had a significant impact on the top line from March to May, although there was a resurgence later in the year and we were able to claw back lost revenue," said Mr O'Reilly. "We invested €66m in the last six years on manufacturing technology to get more efficiency and in 2020 we had the same output as 2019 but in a shorter period."

A little more than half of Mannok's turnover comes from products manufactured in the Republic of Ireland but sold into the UK, which was a problem during the first lockdown as Irish restrictions were harsher than British rules.

"It was a period we found frustrating because of the different lockdown regimes," said chief executive Liam McCaffrey. "We couldn't manufacture but our competitors were free to continue."

The company had to make a "significant investment" to prepare for Brexit. Mr O'Reilly said cross-border trade in Ireland was "business as usual", but that exporting to Britain was now much more complex.

Mannok rebranded last September nine years after founder Sean Quinn was ousted as owner and following a five-year repositioning of the business under Mr McCaffrey's leadership. It was a tumultuous period.

The business remains beset by security problems stemming from a series of attacks on property and personnel, most notably that kidnapping and assault against chief operating officer Kevin Lunney in 2019. Mr McCaffrey also reached an undisclosed settlement with the Central Bank regarding transactions at Quinn Insurance, where he was once a director.