US SOFTWARE giant Oracle Corporation has reported a reduction in profits and lower profit margins at its main Irish unit, a large-scale business whose annual revenues now exceed €3 billion.

Newly-filed accounts for Oracle EMEA Ltd show that its pretax profit fell more than 7 per cent to €468.81 million in the year to May 2007 while turnover rose 17 per cent to €3.18 billion. This means pretax profit margins fell to some 14.7 per cent from 18.7 per cent in the space of a single year.

A spokeswoman in Dublin for Oracle declined to comment last evening on the reasons for this decline. She also declined to comment on the performance of the business in its current fiscal year.

"Trading results continued to be strong and the directors are confident that the company will continue to trade successfully in future period," said its directors in a report with the accounts.

The company made no dividend payment last year to its parent, so a net profit of €391.42 million went straight on to its balance sheet, eliminating a shareholders' deficit of €8.36 million at the end of the previous fiscal year. This deficit followed the return to Oracle Corporation of some €1.96 billion in dividend payments in the course of the three previous fiscal years.

Oracle EMEA's main activities comprise the manufacture and sale of computer software products for the European market and the provision of associated translation, finance and marketing services. The accounts say the company had received grants totalling €8.45 million from IDA Ireland as at May 2007, mainly in respect of the creation of full-time jobs.

In addition, the accounts said "a number of regulatory audits commenced in countries in which the company operates". No provision was made respect of these audits "given that the outcome of these audits cannot be determined with reasonable certainty".