THE IRISH Stock Exchange (ISE) made a pretax loss of €15.5 million in 2008 after losses on investments doubled to €22 million during the year, according to the bourse’s latest annual results.

The loss compared with a deficit of €291,000 the previous year.

The investment losses included an unrealised loss of €18.9 million as the exchange’s revenues fell on the back of fewer listings on the market and lower associated fees.

The exchange said investment losses were due to the policy of marking investments to market, while the pretax loss was recorded “against a background of significant volatility in equity markets”.

Profits from operating activities amounted to €6.6 million for 2008, down 39 per cent from €10.8 million the previous year, as revenues fell 21 per cent to €24 million from €30.3 million in 2007.

“The decline in revenues was driven by the global downturn in issuance of specialist financial products, resulting in reduced listings,” the exchange said.

Within the revenues, “transaction and listing fees and related income” dropped to €22.2 million from €26.9 million, while directive fees collected for the Financial Regulator fell to €1.7 million from €3.3 million during the year.

The exchange’s annual report showed that the main reason for the fall-off in revenue was due to reduced listings of debt securities, which fell by €5.2 million or 47 per cent, and of new investment funds, which were down €692,000 or 31 per cent on the previous year.

Costs fell 11 per cent to €17.4 million from €19.6 million, driven by a reduction of 9 per cent or €828,000 in staff costs to €8.8 million as employee numbers fell to 88 from 92 during the year.

Deirdre Somers, chief executive of the Irish Stock Exchange, said: “Despite exceptionally difficult market conditions, the ISE delivered a solid operating performance . . . Investment losses reflect the generally poor performance of equity markets during 2008. While all financial markets continued to be volatile . . . we expect . . . our financial performance to recover somewhat in the latter half of the year.”

The exchange began to change its investment portfolio to a more diversified global equity, government bond and corporate bond portfolio from early January 2009.

Some €3.2 million of investment funds was placed on deposit with a maturity of greater than three months at the end of last year. The exchange had no such deposits the previous year.

Directors’ remuneration rose to €478,000 from €452,000. The chairman of the exchange, Padraic O’Connor, received €60,000 during the year, while 10 of the remaining 12 directors each received €25,000. Two directors received reduced fees.