Irish arm of Oracle pays out €1.4bn in dividends

Company records pre-tax losses of €138.2 million in the 12 months to the end of May last

The main Irish arm of computer software and hardware giant Oracle has paid out cumulative dividends of €1.455 billion since January of last year.

Accounts show that Oracle EMEA Ltd’s most recent dividend payout of €455 million was made in October 2022. This followed a dividend payout of €1 billion in January of the same year.

The company recorded pretax losses of €138.2 million in the 12 months to the end of May last after recording a pretax profit of €239.76 million in the prior year.

The business went into the red despite revenues increasing by €800 million, or 9.6 per cent, from €8.3 billion to €9.1 billion. The revenues generated by the Irish unit accounted for 24 per cent of Oracle’s global revenues of €38.4 billion ($42.4 billion) in fiscal 2022.

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The firm recorded the loss chiefly from a non-cash impairment charge of €266.76 million on certain intellectual property assets.

In a note with the accounts the directors said that “this impairment arose as a result of a change in the go-to market strategy of an underlying product and a management decision to cease sales of the product to new customers”.

The directors said that this decision “was approved and implemented during the current year, having a negative impact on the future cash flows of the product and the company”.

Numbers employed at the company declined marginally from 1,156 to 1,146 during the year as staff costs increased from €127.09 million to €132.8 million.

The business last year recorded post tax losses of €213.74 million after paying corporation tax of €75.54 million.

The profit last year takes account of combined non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €503 million.

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan is a contributor to The Irish Times