Porn baron nets £7m as profits dip

PROFITS at porn publisher David Sullivan's main holding company fell last year, but that did not stop the owner of the raunchy Daily Sport newspaper awarding himself a £7m pay packet.

Accounts just filed at Companies House show he took home a £4m salary from his wholly-owned Roldvale, compared with £1.2m the previous year. This was topped up by £3m in pension contributions.

Leaving aside his earnings, Sullivan is hardly short of cash. Roldvale has nearly £30m cash in the bank and investment properties worth nearly £50m.

However, Roldvale's profits fell to just over £10m in the year ending September 2001, down from nearly £12m in 2000. The accounts also show that Sullivan's management fees from Sports Newspapers, owner of the Daily and Sunday Sport titles, were slightly down, to £4.25m from £4.5m in the previous year. He jointly owns Sports Newspapers with fellow porn barons the Gold brothers.

The Sports group also has a 78% stake in newly-promoted Premier League football club Birmingham City. Sullivan, 53, made his fortune publishing top-shelf magazines and now runs various adult operations, including internet sites and phone chatlines, along with his extensive property interests through Roldvale from his £15m mansion in Theydon Bois, Essex.

Sullivan saw the value of his investment in horse racing rise, with racing stocks worth nearly £200,000 last year, compared with £85,000 in the previous year.

However, he did not have such a good year on the stock market, with the value of his listed investments falling from nearly £13m to almost £7m. Sullivan told Financial Mail he had netted £11m from his business in the last year: 'I have taken a lot of money out over the past few months and put it into a trust fund for my two sons,' he said.

He also gave away his porn magazines last year to the Gold brothers for nothing: 'They were not making anything. That business is over.' Sullivan retains extensive property interests, including a Bhs store in Stirling, a McDonald's fast-food outlet in London's Shaftesbury Avenue and other properties in neighbouring Soho.