LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES International Sales, an Irish subsidiary of the US telecoms equipment maker, generated a pretax profit of $99 million (€77.2 million) in the 15 months to the end of 2007 but is likely to be put into voluntary liquidation this year.
The move to “decommission” the company and transfer its business activities to other units comes on the back of the December 2006 merger of its parent with French firm Alcatel.
The business, assets, liabilities and staff of the firm were transferred to Alcatel Lucent Ireland from January 1st this year.
Accounts just filed with the Companies Office for Lucent Technologies International Sales (LTIS)show that it increased revenues 2.75 per cent to $2.07 billion during the 15 months to the end of 2007. The cost of sales was $1.3 billion, down from $1.6 billion in 2006 when it reported on a 52-week basis.
LTIS was the principal conduit for Lucent’s sales outside of the US.
The accounts were signed off by the directors on January 13th last rather than by the current auditors Ernst Young, who gave a qualified opinion on the accounts. This was because the company received a strike off notice last October due to late filing of accounts. The accounts state that if the “directors were to wait for the work being undertaken by the auditors to be fully completed the accounts would not be completed until after the anticipated strike off date”.
A spokeswoman for the company said that following the merger a large number of legal entities were being liquidated or merged and this is what led to the delay in preparing the accounts.
LTIS paid $10 million in cirporation for its 65 week 2007 financial reporting period compared to $12.8 million for 2006.
The firm paid a dividend of $65 million to Lucent Technologies Dublin Holdings, a related company which was put into liquidation earlier this month. This left the firm with shareholders funds of $170 million at the end of the period.
The accounts show that LTIS had an average of 213 staff during the period in question, down from 237 in 2006. Staff costs were $24.3 million.
The spokeswomen said Alcatel-Lucent currently has 175 staff at its operations in Dublin and Cork. This includes a Bell Labs facility which carries out research and development work and is supported by IDA Ireland.
