The owners of the Jurys Doyle Hotel Group have received dividends of more than €880 million in the last two years, according to new figures.

The shareholders – members of the extended Doyle and Beatty families – received dividends of €578 million last year, following the sale of most of its portfolio of hotels. That windfall followed a €303 million dividend in 2006.

Jurys Doyle Hotel Group (JDHG) made the dividend payouts before its parent company, JDH Acquisitions, was acquired and then put into voluntary liquidation late last year. Accounts recently filed for JDHG confirm the extent of the dividend windfall.

The ownership consortium includes the extended families of three daughters of PV Doyle, the founder of the Doyle hotel group, and four members of the family of Dublin solicitor Walter Beatty. They bought out the Jurys Doyle Hotel Group in a €1.6 billion deal in 2005, and went on to sell the Berkeley Court and Jurys Hotels in Ballsbridge to property developer Sean Dunne for €370 million.

Property developer Bernard McNamara bought the Burlington Hotel in 2006 for €288 million and a consortium of investors assembled by financier Derek Quinlan bought the Jurys Inn chain for €1.1 billion last year.

The Montrose Hotel in Dublin was also sold for €50 million. The deals, done at the peak of the property boom, enabled the consortium to repay the borrowings associated with the buyout and distribute €881 million to shareholders in just two years.

The group still owns several hotels in Ireland and abroad, including the Westbury Hotel in Dublin. The chain is now owned equally by four companies.

One company, Galtel, is owned by PV Doyle’s daughter, Bernie Gallagher, and her husband, John.

The remaining 75 per cent is owned by five members of the family of Bernie’s sister Ann Roche, five members of the family of her other sister, Eileen Monahan, and four members of the family of Walter Beatty.

Recently-filed accounts for Jurys Doyle Hotel (Holdings), which now owns the remaining hotels, show that it made a pre-tax profit of €19.8 million in 2007 on a turnover of €73 million.