French software company Business Objects booked revenues of €407.5 million through its Dublin operations last year and generated a pre-tax profit of €47 million.
Accounts for the year to December 31st, 2006, which were recently filed with the Companies Office underline the importance of the Irish subsidiary, Business Objects Software Limited, to the parent. The company established a Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) operations centre in Dublin in 2005.
Nasdaq-listed Business Objects had total revenues of $1.25 billion in 2006 and pre-tax earnings of $131.6 million dollars. Using the exchange rates from December 31st last this equates to €947.2 million in revenue and earnings of €99.73 million, almost half its profits are derived from Ireland.
The Irish operation paid €8.3 million in taxes last year, down from €9.8 million in 2005.
Business Objects has become one of the largest software com-panies in Europe since it was founded in 1990. It sells business intelligence software which takes data from other business applications and runs reports on that data so that meaningful trends can be identified.
The company is currently the subject of a €4.8 billion friendly takeover bid from German software giant SAP. The accounts show that an average of 108 people worked for Business Objects in the Republic in 2006.
John Walsh, vice president for finance and global shared services, said employment had continued to grow this year and staff numbers were almost at 200. The average salary at the Irish facility was €78,796.
