Siemens, the global engineering group, has reported significantly enhanced profits of €4.7 million for its Irish operations after landing several major lucrative contracts.
Siemens, which employs about 850 at its sites in Ireland, has posted pretax profits of €4.7 million for the year ended September 30th, 2005, compared to €4.2 million in the previous period. Its operating profit was up even more, from €2.4 million to €4.6 million.
The company operates across a range of areas, but mainly in power generation and distribution, automation, building technology, medical equipment and IT.
On the back of a worldwide acquisition in June, Bayer Diagnostics, is also becoming part of Siemens at present.
The company has understaken several major projects for State-owned companies and organisations recently. For example it won a contract to fit out the new St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. It is also upgrading the coal-fired Moneypoint power station in Co Clare for the ESB.
Siemens has developed a major business in power generation over recent years, also working with Viridian at its Huntstown plants and with ESB at Poolbeg, both in Dublin.
The accounts show turnover for the period rising to €143 million, down slightly from €147 million. The cost of sales at the company dropped from €127 million to €121 million. Gross profit came in at €22.8 million, up from €20.2 million. The Irish subsidiary was able to pay its dividend €2 million, up from €1.5 million.
At present a related company, Siemens Business Service, which operates a call centre in Cork, is being integrated into the main company. The payroll costs at the company came to €23 million.
The accounts state: "The directors are satisfied with the performance of the company in the year and expect to continue to grow the company's business and capitalise on market opportunities by competitive tendering in the foreseeable future."
During the period under review Siemens sold its mobile phone business as part of a "global exit", but this resulted in no gain or loss in Ireland.
The company's ultimate parent is Siemens International Holding BV, based in Munich, Germany, which recently reported a 32 per cent rise in group operating profits to €1.28 billion in its third quarter.
The company also posted a 14 per cent rise in third-quarter orders, broadly in line with expectations, and said it expected full-year income from continuing operations at least on a par with last years.
New orders came in at €22.44 billion, boosted by international business and acquisitions. Sales rose 14 per cent to€21.173 billion, beating expectations of €21.006 billion for the industrial conglomerate.
Net profit more than doubled to € 792 million, and income from continuing operations, including a small loss from the disposal of the mobile phones division, was €804 million. Both were worse than the expected €819 million net profit.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)