Dawn Meats largest shareholder made profits of €19m last year

Arrow Group, the private company which holds a controlling stake in Ireland’s largest beef processor Dawn Meats, made profits of €19m last year, the Irish Farmers Journal can reveal. Arrow Group is the holding company for the business interests of the Queally family from Co Waterford.

The Queallys’ primary investments include a 64% stake in Dawn Meats, a 90% majority shareholding in Kildare-based Dawn Farm Foods, as well as the QK Meats cold storage and meat trading businesses.

Accounts recently filed for Arrow Group show the business made pre-tax profits of more than €19m last year. Arrow recorded sales of just under €552m for 2018, which was up slightly (+1%) on the previous year.

The company blamed the fall in underlying profits on a decline in the value of its portfolio of investment properties

Operating profits in the business dropped more than 40% year on year to €19.3m as profit margins narrowed from 6% in 2017 to 3.5% last year.

The company blamed the fall in underlying profits on a decline in the value of its portfolio of investment properties along with the negative impact of currency movements.

The accounts also show the Queallys paid themselves €7.5m in dividends last year, which is down slightly from the €9m the family paid themselves in 2017.

Balance sheet

At year-end 2018, Arrow Group’s net debt position stood at €48m, which is down 16%, or €9.3m, year on year.

The company’s balance sheet is valued at more than €180m, while accumulated profits in the business rose to €155m by the end of last year.

During 2018, Arrow Group took full control of a company called Pasta Concepts Ltd after it paid €757,500 to acquire the remaining 20% stake in the business.

This values the entire Pasta Concepts business, which is based in Naas, Co Kildare, at just over €9m.

The group paid out €76.5m in wages to its near 1,900 employees in 2018

Arrow Group, which has interests in meat processing, food solutions, property and even bottled water, spent more than €7m on R&D projects last year.

The group paid out €76.5m in wages to its near 1,900 employees in 2018 and paid close to €2.3m in corporation tax last year.

The Queally empire: what is Arrow Group?

Arrow Group is really just the holding company for the wide array of businesses the Queally family has built up over the years.

The listed directors in Arrow Group are John Queally, Peter Queally, Michael Queally, Ivor Queally, Liam Queally and Marie Crowley.

Brothers John and Peter Queally are well-known players in the Irish beef sector, having founded Dawn Meats along with Dan Browne 40 years ago.

Since taking control of Dunbia in 2017, Dawn Meats is now the largest beef processor in Ireland, accounting for close to 25% of the national kill.

The company also accounts for circa 20% of the UK cattle kill, while it processes 3m sheep annually across the UK and Ireland.

The Queally family’s other interests include a pig slaughtering enterprise in Waterford and a range of cold meat stores as well as significant property interests and even a water distribution business based in Barcelona.

The other key subsidiary business of the Arrow Group is Kildare-based Dawn Farm Foods.

The business, which supplies cooked and fermented meats to the food manufacturing and foodservice industries, is 90% owned by the Queallys.

The remaining 10% stake in the company is owned by Larry Murrin, the chief executive of Dawn Farm Foods.

In 2017, Dawn Farm Foods signed an €850m contract with Subway, which will see it supply over 4,000 Subway restaurants in over 30 countries

Dawn Farm Foods supplies a number of blue-chip customers including Pizza Hut and the sandwich chain Subway.

In 2017, Dawn Farm Foods signed an €850m contract with Subway, which will see it supply over 4,000 Subway restaurants in over 30 countries across Europe for seven years.

The business is also a large supplier of meat ingredients to pizza, sandwich and ready meal markets, with about 80% of all business coming through export sales.

Other subsidiaries of Arrow Group that will be known to many farmers include the QK Meats and QK cold storage businesses.

The group also controls Kildare-based Irish Dog Foods Ltd and owns 50% of Rednut Ltd, a joint venture pet food business between Arrow Group and Connolly’s Red Mills.

The Queallys also control a number of consumer foods businesses that complement its core business of providing cooked meat solutions

The Rednut joint venture generated profits of almost €62,000 for its 2017 financial year and had sales of €24.2m. Arrow Group also owns 100% of a UK pet foods business known as Bennington Foods. Bennington Foods has annual sales of almost €9m and made profits of €625,000 last year.

The Queallys also control a number of consumer foods businesses that complement its core business of providing cooked meat solutions.

On top of this, Arrow Group also owns a bottled water company based in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, called Glenpatrick Springwater, which manufactures bottled water and other beverages.