American entrepreneur Dirk O'Hara, who owns and runs a number of businesses in Oklahoma and Texas including including nursing homes, post-acute care facilities, addiction treatment centres, funeral homes and an Asian restaurant, has invested €250,000 in Co. Longford's Lough Ree Distillery.
O'Hara told The Business Post that he invested in Lough Ree Distillery following discussions with a number of sources including Enterprise Ireland about the possibility of opening his own distillery in Ireland.
"Go Into A Business That's Growing"
The Business Post quotes O'Hara as saying, "I like Irish whiskey and, being an entrepreneur, I saw the market was growing. A piece of advice I got at the start of my career was go into a business that's growing because even an average business can survive in that. That advice has always served me well.
"Irish whiskey is an old product, but it had come down to a very small number of suppliers in recent years, and the growth is going to be outstanding over the next decade, or maybe two decades."
"Better To Partner With Someone"
O'Hara said that he changed his mind about opening his own distillery when he was old that the whiskey category has become saturated with newcomers, and instead decided to invest in Lough Ree Distillery as a result of being told that he "was too late and that it was better to partner with someone."
Most Recent Accounts
As reported by The Business Post, the most recent accounts for the company behind Lough Ree Distillery, Blacksmith Ventures, state that the company had assets worth €1.1 million including €200,000 in cash at the end of August of 2018, and that it owed its creditors approximately €335,000 and had accumulated loss of €227,249.
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