Losses soar at DZ Bank subsidiary after assets sale

Losses at DZ Finance Ireland, the Irish division of German financial institution DZ Bank, widened substantially last year, newly filed accounts show.

The IFSC-based subsidiary, formerly DZ Bank Ireland, recently handed back its banking licence and closed its Dublin branch with the loss of 20 jobs. Accounts filed with the Companies Registration Office show the bank reported a €37.9 million loss last year, up from €12.1 million in 2014. The loss comes after the subsidiary completed the sale of €1.2 billion of assets to its parent last June in a move that generated a €27 million loss. Some of the assets have since been written off by DZ Bank.

In addition to the loss on the sale of assets, the bank also recorded increased impairment provisions of €3.46 million. The bank reported staff costs of €5.15 million, which included redundancy.

At year-end, total assets amounted to €11.8 million versus €1.5 billion in 2014. Total equity fell to €8.4 million following the return of €200 million capital contributions and €6.5 million share capital to its parent.

DZ Bank first came to Dublin in 1995 when it received an IFSC licence incorporation as SGZ (Ireland) plc.

At one point it employed almost 30 people, had assets of close to €4 billion and was focused on investing in high-grade credit products including floating rate notes and asset swaps, and syndicated and bilateral loans.

DZ Finance changed its name in October, a few days after it made a request to the Central Bank to have its banking licence revoked.