NCB directors paid €2.1m as profits return

THE directors of NCB Stockbrokers paid themselves more than €2 million last year as the firm swung back into profit.

Accounts just lodged at the Companies Registration Office, show the six listed directors of Ireland’s third-largest stockbroking firm shared total remuneration of €2.1 million in the year to end November 2005, compared to 885,000 in 2004.

NCB, which is owned by its senior managers and Cavan-based businessman Sean Quinn, made a pre-tax profit of €5.62m compared to a €141,000 loss in the previous 12-month period.

Turnover for the year was ahead strongly, rising from €27.95m to €38m. Retained profits hit 10.9m, at the financial year end, while net assets rose to €25m.

The return to profitability allowed the stockbroker to pay its shareholders a dividend of €917,126, or €9.56 per share in NCB. NCB chief executive Conor O’Kelly and fellow directors Liam Booth, Tommy Conway, Gregory Dilger and Graham O’Brien, are among the largest shareholders in the company.

NCB appears to be competing well against rivals Davy and Goodbody Stockbrokers. According to the accounts, NCB held client funds totalling €328m at the end of November last year, €43m more than in 2004.

The management team led an €18m buy-out of the company in 2003 from Ulster Bank, with backing from its previous owner Dermot Desmond and Mr Quinn.

The broker employs 150 in Dublin and now has recently opened an office in London.