ACC losses down to €93m as operating income rises 25%

Losses at the former ACC Bank, which now trades as ACC Loan Management, narrowed in 2015 due to higher income, and reductions in its loan impairment charges and operating expenses.

Accounts just filed for ACC Loan Management Ltd show that it made an after-tax loss of €93.1 million last year, down from €165.3 million in 2014.

Its operating income rose by 25 per cent to €76.8 million, with interest income increasing by 9 per cent as the company benefitted from “greater recoveries than it previously expected”.

Operating expenses fell by 22 per cent to €41.2 million while the bank’s impairment charge reduced to €140.9 million from €190.4 million in 2014.

Wind-down mode

ACC started out as a State-owned financial institution, specialising in lending to the agri sector.

It is now wholly owned by Dutch financial group Rabobank and announced its exit from the Irish retail banking market in late 2013. It handed back its licence the following year and shut its branch network.

It has since been in wind- down mode with its loan recovery activities outsourced to Capita Asset Services (Ireland) from March 1st. ACC continues to own the assets and is accountable to the Central Bank for regulatory purposes.

Its loan book, net of provisions, reduced to €1.5 billion at the end of 2015, down from just under €2 billion a year earlier. The loan book is almost two-thirds commercial with the balance residential.

Staff costs

The average number of staff employed by ACC last year was 246, down from 365 in 2014. Staff costs fell by €5.4 million to €19.8 million during the year.

However, directors’ remuneration rose by €400,000 to €1.2 million.

ACC made an unrealised gain of €16 million on its defined benefit pension scheme as a result of a change in the financial assumptions underlying the calculation of the liabilities within the scheme. This resulted in the deficit in the fund decreasing to €2 million at the end of last year compared with €21 million at the end of 2014.

ACC said: “The reduced loss in 2015 compared to 2014 was due to a lower impairment charge than in previous years together with an increased interest income as the company benefited from greater recoveries and a slowdown in the rate of impairments.”