Anglo staff scoop €20m windfall

CLOSE to 300 Anglo Irish Bank employees will share in profits of almost €20 million netting each up to €76,711 for an investment of just €12,045 in a save-as-you- earn employee bonus scheme.

The scheme, taken up by most employees including chief executive Sean Fitzpatrick, finance director William McAteer and group risk asset manager Peter Killen, enables investors to benefit from a company-sponsored saving's scheme allowing them to buy Anglo shares for just €1.79.

The shares traded at €11.40 yesterday. The bank has disclosed that 300 of its 430 Irish employees have taken up the scheme since it was launched three years ago.

Under the scheme, employees save up €317 per month for three to seven years and at the end of their chosen period the savings can be used to buy shares for just €1.79. This represented a 25% discount on Anglo shares market price when the scheme was launched.

The bulk of scheme participants took out the three-year option and received their shares recently.

Company executives bought theirs in recent days as they were prohibited from trading in the shares prior to the announcement of company results last week. The rest of the workforce will have to wait another two or four years.

The Revenue Commissioners have approved the Anglo scheme with employees paying no income tax on the proceeds of the savings plan, but any profits on the sale of the shares will be liable to capital gains tax of 20%.

The profits to Anglo employees are a direct result of the shares near 400% increase over the last three years making them among the stellar performer on the Irish Stock Exchange in the period.

Investors in Irish stocks fared well this year with the value of the ISEQ up 18.05% this year to €4,764.99m from €3,995.03m.

Elan is the surprise star performer among the bigger companies this year clocking up an increase of 120% on its share price since the end of December 2002.

Glass companies Ardagh, down 44% and Waterford Wedgwood, down 43%, were the two shares best avoided. Despite these falls small cap companies were, as a class, up 51.96%.

Those tech stocks that remain on the Irish listing were the best performers, as a class, in the year to the end of November.

The value of the tech index ITEQ increased by 66.66% to €349.04m from €208.54m at the beginning of the year with Horizon Technology the top performer with a 163% increase in share price.