PayPal’s Irish profits halve to €5.8m

Pre-tax profits at the main Irish arm of online payments facilitator PayPal last year more than halved to €5.8m.
PayPal’s Irish profits halve to €5.8m

PayPal’s Irish operating profits decreased from €11.9m to €5.8m while the accounts show that after corporation tax of €1.5m, profit for the year totalled €4.3m.

The diminished profit came in spite of revenues increasing by 10.5%, from €152m to €168m, in the 12 months to the end of December last.

Numbers employed at the firm continued to increase during the year, with staff levels going up from 2,184 to 2,320.

At the end of December last, the company had €42.7m in accumulated profits, €59.43m in shareholder funds, and a cash pile that totalled €62.9m.

PayPal’s drop in profits last year arose from the firm’s administrative expenses increasing from €152m to €168m. Staff costs increased by 11%, going from €91.8m to €102m. That figure included €5.3m in share-based payments and redundancy costs of €2.29m.

In the company’s latest accounts, PayPal Ireland’s directors said they were satisfied with the performance, which was been broadly in line with expectations.

The company’s three directors shared combined pay of €507,000 in 2015, up from €493,000 in the previous year.

PayPal’s European headquarters is based in Blanchardstown, Dublin, where it hosts customer services and financial services functions for the European market.

Led by Louise Phelan, the main growth at PayPal’s Irish operations has come at its Dundalk facility. However, the firm announced 100 new jobs at its Dublin facility in March of this year and has plans to employ 3,000 here by 2018.

It was recently announced that Ms Phelan will move soon to a wider role within the larger PayPal group, that of vice-president covering western, central, and eastern Europe, Ireland, the Middle East, and Africa.

She will be replaced as head of global operations for the EMEA region/head of PayPal Ireland by Maeve Dorman, who has been with the company for the past 10 years.

PayPal is now an independent, publicly traded company having been spun-out from eBay last year.

PayPal was purchased by eBay for $1.5bn in 2002, with PayPal Europe Services Ltd being incorporated in Ireland four years later.

The company operates an online internet marketplace where users buy and trade goods and services, the payments of which are managed and secured by PayPal.

EBay was founded in California in 1995 and has grown to become the leading Internet auction site.

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