SALTIRE Taverns has posted a minor loss in its final full year of trading under Billy Lowe, the Scottish pub entrepreneur who sold the business to Glendola Leisure in August.

The company, which owns boutique hotels Le Monde and the Angels Share in Edinburgh, booked a pre-tax loss of £15,250 in the year ended January 31, accounts newly-filed at Companies House reveal. This compares with a pre-tax profit of £6,307 in 2014.

The accounts became available just weeks after Mr Lowe sold Saltire to Glendola, whose outlets include Waxy O’Connor’s in Glasgow, in a multi-million deal described by Mr Lowe as a “good one for both parties”.

The operator had built up Saltire after successfully exiting Thistle Inns, the pub business he formed with his cousin Kenny Waugh and sold to Scottish Brewers for around £20 million in 1997.

Mr Lowe, who had been the majority shareholder in Saltire, had previously sold its Frankenstein outlets in Glasgow and Edinburgh to Glendola in 2011.

The latest accounts for Saltire show sales rose by five per cent to £7.8m last year. Writing in the accounts, Mr Lowe put the uplift down to the “growing popularity of Le Monde and Angels Share as qualitative bar and restaurant operations, and leading boutique hotels in Edinburgh.”

Operating profits dipped to £142,281 compared with £305,161 the year before, the profit and loss account states, which Mr Lowe said was a “consequence of costs incurred in management training and personal development”. Directors’ remuneration rose to £238,409 from £208,858 the year prior, the accounts show.