How to get information on Irish Companies (e.g Applegreen and Topaz)

clarkson01

Hi, can anybody out there tell me where I can get reliable information on 2 Irish companies? I need to do a comparison for a research project and I have spent days trawling the internet to no avail.Rang up the companies and they refused to give me information.

I would really appreciate if someone can help me?

Many thanks,

Clarkson01

A_Sober_Paddy

clarkson01 wrote: »

Hi, can anybody out there tell me where I can get reliable information on 2 Irish companies? I need to do a comparison for a research project and I have spent days trawling the internet to no avail.Rang up the companies and they refused to give me information.

I would really appreciate if someone can help me?

Many thanks,

Clarkson01

If they are a private limited company you can request information from dublin castle i think, i managed to get info a few company's this way(well one of my fellow classmates did the work)

Not 100% sure if it was for private or public limited companys actually

Pinch Flat

A_Sober_Paddy wrote: »

If they are a private limited company you can request information from dublin castle i think, i managed to get info a few company's this way(well one of my fellow classmates did the work)

Not 100% sure if it was for private or public limited companys actually

What about www.solocheck.ie or www.duedil.ie?

bigbarginhunter

Have you tried solocheck.ie? Depends what type of info you want.

hfallada

Cro will have their accounts available for Purchase online. But if you search the Irish times website I'm sure will be fund most of the important stuff in their accounts in one it's articles

A_Sober_Paddy

Pinch Flat wrote: »

What about www.solocheck.ie or www.duedil.ie?

As I said it was when I was in college(about 4 years ago) and thought it was dublin castle or something along those lines

terryhobdell

vision-net.ie will give you accounts etc. There are thousands of stories in newspapers. See if any Stockbrokers have written about them get a copy of their annual report which includes accounts from them.Why do you say they wouldn't give information? What and who did you ask? Ask their pr department for shareholder info
Visit the Companies records office see what is in the public domain. Use your head!!!! you are supposed to be using it to show someone that you can do basic research.

terryhobdell

A simple Google of Topaz financials gives their annual report for 2013 Wikipedia gives a lot of info.What were you doing for hours on the Internet?? You should really do your own homework.

Pinch Flat

A_Sober_Paddy wrote: »

As I said it was when I was in college(about 4 years ago) and thought it was dublin castle or something along those lines

Ok, if traipsing to Dublin Castle is convenient. OP could be in at the other end of the country. Plenty of on-line resources out there.

terryhobdell

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pedroeibar1

The spectre of homework projects again raises its head.

At least the OP was upfront and said it was required for a project and not as a potential supplier. While I fully agree the OP could look a little harder, s/he asked for and is looking for ‘reliable’ information which is not that easy to find in detail as Topaz in particular is quite secretive. Nor is Wiki allowed as a source in academic circles. There is an interesting presentation here which is heavy on sales/marketing but weak on financials.

It is a fascinating sector that underwent huge change in the last decade, a great topic for a project even if detailed data cannot be obtained. The influence of non-oil retail (drink, groceries and the breakfast roll) and the car wash are very important. During the Celtic Tiger many petrol stations (like garden centres) became a property play and wisely got out as the ROCE was useless, as a result of oil price volatility, the high cost of stock and growing competition from Tesco / retail discount promotions. Applegreen is Petrogas, figures are available but I don’t know if they are broken down between Irl / UK operations. Topaz also has franchisees, so that need to be factored in when looking at the accounts.

Topaz is interesting, it onlyj ‘turned the corner’ last year and was losing a lot of money. It was put together by Danny Murray, the former CEO of Emo Oil, a distributor owned by DCC. It was widely believed at the time that the key shareholder was/is Ion Equity. Denis O'Brien was/is reportedly involved, as was/is NAMA’s biggest client, Gerry Barrett, and whatever bit of Anglo is around. Senior mgmt also are supposed to have a stake. No idea if all that is still the case, so research it.

The first acquisition by Topaz was the Shell retail network in 2005 (for a reported €160 million) - then it bought the Statoil operation. The Irish Competition Authority screwed up and cleared the Statoil deal due to an error, leading to considerable political fall-out and criticism. Topaz offloaded some property and probably paid down some of their debt, but probably nowhere near enough. As it bought most of its sites in the boom, they would need to be seriously written down from the purchase price paid.