formed Axis Education Group in March last year<\/a> as part of an arrangement to merge a number of colleges they owned. <\/p>\nThe new group, comprising Dublin Academy of Education, Independent College, International House Dublin and Public Affairs Ireland, involved Lauder\u2019s business being folded into Barry\u2019s existing firm Indigo Ventures Limited.<\/p>\n
New financial accounts for the company show it made a \u20ac4 million payout before the merger was completed.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Axis Education Group confirmed this dividend was paid to a company called Wardmay Holdings Limited, which is co-owned by Barry and Rosemary Barry.<\/p>\n
Barry bought Independent College and International House, based on Foley Street, Dublin 1, from Independent News & Media in 2014. His acquisition of Public Affairs Ireland was completed during the pandemic. <\/p>\n
Before the merger, Barry held a minority stake in Lauder\u2019s Dublin Academy. <\/p>\n
New consolidated accounts for Axis Education Group show it is majority-controlled by Barry\u2019s company, Wardmay Holdings Limited, which owns 80 per cent of the group. Lauder\u2019s firm, Stonemall Limited, owns the remaining 20 per cent.<\/p>\n
Padraig Hourigan, the former head of Independent College who also owned a stake in the business, sold his shareholding in the school as part of the merger deal. <\/p>\n
Hourigan remained with the company to act as its new director of strategy and partnerships, but holds no stake in the business any longer.<\/p>\n
In March 2025, when the merger was confirmed, Lauder said the new group would have an annual student headcount of close to 20,000 and annual revenues of \u20ac20 million. <\/p>\n
The latest financial accounts show it booked combined revenue of \u20ac22.3 million in the 18-month period to June 2025, compared to \u20ac17.4 million in the 2023 calendar year.<\/p>\n
Between the two accounting periods, the firm\u2019s operating margin contracted from 13.8 per cent to 2.8 per cent as operating profits declined from \u20ac2.4 million to \u20ac627,000. After-tax profits fell from \u20ac2 million to \u20ac676,000.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the group said the operating profits were \u201cnot directly comparable\u201d as they related to a 12-month and an 18-month period. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis additional six-month period includes a quieter stretch in the academic calendar; a seasonal pattern anticipated by the business and typical across the education sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The spokesman said \u201cthe business remains on a strong trajectory with healthy underlying operating profits\u201d.<\/p>\n
Following the payment of the \u20ac4 million dividend, the company booked a shareholders\u2019 deficit of \u20ac131,000.<\/p>\n
The new accounts also showed staff costs for the 18-month period were \u20ac3.5 million, but the average number of staff employed by the group each month in the period fell from 212 to 198.<\/p>\n
Lauder\u2019s Dublin Academy has become one of the State\u2019s fastest-growing grind schools in recent years.<\/p>\n
Last year, Axis Education Group announced plans to expand the school through a \u20ac7 million investment in Blackrock, Co Dublin, where it plans to expand enrolment from 375 to 500 students.<\/p>\n
The school, where full-time students pay more than \u20ac10,000 a year, said it planned to move to the old Zurich Insurance building and retrofit the property into a 2,600sq foot campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serial investor Donagh Barry, of the Barry\u2019s Tea family, earned a \u20ac4 million payout from his education group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,14331,52,18,19,17,12551,105248,12548],"class_list":["post-622949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cao","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-second-level","tag-stillorgan","tag-third-level"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117046574306653413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}