Insurance brokerage Marsh Ireland shrugged off a €9.2 million drop in revenues last year to return to the black with a modest pretax profit of €85,860.
The company, a subsidiary of US giant Marsh & McLennan, achieved the pretax profit after it set aside almost €3.7 million in once-off provisions for redundancies and a pension contribution.
Marsh Ireland lost more than €5 million in 2004, a year after it told regulators of a €6.7 million hole in its 2003 accounts.
Chief executive Joe Grogan said he was very encouraged by the turnaround last year.
"The positive trend in our 2005 performance has continued into 2006, for which we anticipate further continuing improvement," he said.
Newly-filed accounts for the business show that the return to profitability was achieved in spite of a fall in revenues to €37.3 million from €46.5 million.
"In 2005 premiums within the insurance industry continue to reduce in a very soft market resulting in a reduction in commission-based business," said the directors of the company in a note with accounts.
In a statement yesterday, the company said its revenues in the year to date have "shown a continuing improvement on the trend in 2005".
Marsh attributed this improvement to the adoption of a new business model.
The company reported a post-tax loss of €358,058 last year after the reversal of a deferred tax provision. It took a tax charge of €406,096 under "disallowed expenditure for tax purposes" following this reversal.
Redundancy costs of €1.99 million were incurred in a year in which the company reduced its staff to 300 from 368. Marsh also made a €1.7 million pension provision "in order to address the solvency of the pension plan".
