Dominance of US firms shows success of IDA's strategy: ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2005/12/18 > Dominance of US firms shows success of IDA's strategy

Dominance of US firms shows success of IDA's strategy
Sunday, December 18, 2005 - By Neil Callanan
The sheer number of American companies that appear on the list of the top 100 most profitable companies in the country highlights the success of IDA Ireland in enticing leading American companies to Ireland.

Ireland's position as the largest software exporter in the world is based on the high level of investment by US companies in this country, which has been the near automatic country of choice for US companies looking to set up a European headquarters. This is largely due to the corporation tax regime in this country and the IDA's efforts.

The IDA's policy of attracting the market leader in emerging technologies in the belief that other companies in the sector will follow afterwards has been hugely successful with household names such as Intel, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon and Microsoft all now based in this country.

Five of the top 10 most profitable companies in Ireland are American subsidiaries, including the top two: Microsoft's Round Island One and Janssen Pharmaceutical.

Janssen Pharmaceutical is the holding company for the manufacturing activities of Johnson & Johnson in Ireland, including Janssen Pharmaceutical in Cork, DePuy in Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, and Vistakon in Plessey, Limerick.

The Janssen plant in Cork produces active pharmaceutical ingredients for use in Johnson & Johnson's formulation plants around the world.

In total, the company employs more than 2,000 people here. That figure will increase in the coming years because Centocor, another Johnson & Johnson subsidiary is developing a new biopharmaceutical manufacturing centre of excellence on an IDA site at Barnahely, Ringaskiddy, Co Cork. Janssen made a profit of €1.42 billion in the financial year ended January 2, 2005 on sales of €4.4 billion.

The fourth most profitable company operating in Ireland is Intel which made a profit of €1.36 billion on sales of €6.48 billion from its Irish operations in the year ended April 31, 2004.

The company is currently investing €1.6 billion on Fab 24-2, its new wafer fabrication facility in Leixlip, Co Kildare. But the government was forced to withdraw the aid package it had offered the company for the project when it became clear that the European Commission was going to block it even though Ireland was not competing with another EU country for the project.

The project is on track to open in the first quarter of next year.

There are currently 5,150 people employed directly and indirectly at the Intel Ireland facility in Leixlip and a further 125 are employed at Intel Communications Europe in Shannon, Co Clare, developing advanced broadband technologies for network access and infrastructure devices.

It is planning to create 80 new research and development jobs in Shannon over the next couple of years.

Larry Ellison's Oracle comes in at number eight and Forest Laboratories Ireland at number nine.

They are both American companies that rank amongst the top 10 most profitable firms in Ireland.

Forest Laboratories produces medical tablets here for the US market and the company has taken a €1.05 billion dividend from its Irish unit to take advantage of a US tax concession introduced last year by President Bush.

Just outside the top 10 were Boston Scientific, Apple and Xilinx, which had combined profits of more than €1.1 billion in their last financial year.