Brian O'Driscoll and Niall Horan backed Gym+Coffee returns to profit in 2025

Gordon Deegan

The Gym+Coffee clothing brand retail business, backed by rugby legend Brian O’Driscoll and singer-songwriter Niall Horan, returned to profit last year to record pre-tax profits of €749,468.

New consolidated accounts for Gym Plus Coffee Ltd show that the group returned to profit after revenues rose by 27 per cent from €14.76 million to €18.69 milllion in the 12 months to the end of June 2025.

The group has lodged new accounts for 2025 and two sets of overdue accounts covering the 2024/23/22 periods.

The overdue accounts show that the expansion of the athleisure brand has not been without its challenges, with the new figures showing that the return to profit last year followed the group recording losses of €3.04 million in the 12 months to the end of June 2024 and losses of €11.99m in the 18 months to the end of June 2023.

Employment numbers reached a peak at the end of June 2023 at 180 and have since reduced by 40 per cent, or 73 to 107, at the end of June 2025.

On the return to profit last year, the directors state that they note “a very satisfactory outturn for the year ended June 30th 2025 reflecting the culmination of the company’s multi-year transformation strategy and a very welcome return to profitability”.

The directors point out that the business enjoyed a €3.8 million turnaround and “this was a significant undertaking and was achieved through a mix of cost discipline and margin improvement initiatives, a redefined product offering and continued focus on expansion in the UK market, particularly online and in the UK wholesale market”.

They state that “all of these strategies contributed towards boosting topline sales with significantly stronger margins whilst reducing overheads and ultimately delivering a substantial turnaround and return to profitability”.

The directors state that the overall strategy for the company into the future remains to increase top line revenues across its existing markets in a profitable and sustainable manner.

Providing an update on current trading, the directors state that trading during the most recent financial year end to the end of 30 June this year “has remained encouraging and the directors are pleased with the continued momentum of the business. The directors expect FY26 to deliver further business growth in revenue and profitability”.

They state that “this improvement in performance over FY25 and FY26 reflects the continued execution of the Company’s strategy”.

Explaining the €11.99 million loss for the 18 months to the end of June 2023, the newly released directors’ report for that period states that “the main reasons for the loss were due to the large expansion costs as the company accelerated its efforts in the UK with a number of store openings and a large marketing spend.

The directors state that there was a large amount of one-off costs associated with the successful Series A funding round that also contributed towards this loss.

Niall Horan and Brian O’Driscoll are just two of the backers of the brand and the directors state that Gym+Coffee raised €12.8 million from CastleGate Investments and €500,000 from West Ventures in 2022 “so is well funded".

The directors also state that there is an exaggerated impact to the 2023 loss as it covers an 18-month period and includes four quarters of seasonal lower trading activity.

The 2025 accounts show that Irish revenues increased by 9pc from €11.9 million to €12.95 million while UK revenues doubled from €2.86 million to €5.73 million

Numbers employed last year decreased from 112 to 107 as staff costs rose from €3.6 million to €4.08 million.

Pay to directors last year increased by 57 per cent from €305,916 to €481,479.

Under the heading of VAT liability, a note states that as of 1st May 2024, the company agreed a repayment plan with Revenue for warehoused taxes.

The note states that these VAT liabilities will be repaid over an 8-year period, with equal monthly repayments of €16,347. The directors state that the tax liabilities are being repaid with 0.0pc interest.

The payments over the eight-year period will amount to €1.56m based on the monthly repayments.

At the end of June 2025, the group had shareholder funds of €94,959, made up of accumulated losses of €13.93 million offset by a share premium account of €14.03m.

Cash funds increased from €5.06 million to €5.4 million.