Symantec losses top €6.6m over charges

THE crash in the Dublin commercial property market contributed to the main Irish subsidiary of US software giant Symantec last year recording a loss in its operations here.

In accounts just filed to the Companies’ Office, they show that an impairment charge of €14m on a Dublin office block owned by Symantec Ltd contributed to a pre-tax loss of €6.6m last year.

The filings by Symantec Ltd show that it recorded a 3% or €48m drop in turnover from €1.53bn to €1.48bn to April 3 last.

Turnover at the company accounted for 36% of Symantec’s global revenues of $6.1bn (€4.2bn) in 2009. After a pre-tax profit of €27.3m in 2008, Symantec Ltd sustained a €6.6m pre-tax loss last year. The company would have recorded a pre-tax profit but for incurring impairment charges totalling €42.4m.

The accounts record that the company sustained a €28.3m impairment charge on investments and a €14.1m impairment charge on the value of a Dublin building.

The company announced in May 2008 that it would be vacating one of its two Dublin-owned buildings and the vacant property was put up for sale.

The impairment charge reduced the value of the company’s “land and buildings” before depreciation from €29m at the end of March 2008 to €15m in April of last year.

The impairment charges also hit operating profit, going from an operating profit of €21.9m in 2008 to an operating loss of €14.1m in 2009.

The company’s after tax loss last year was €24m after it paid corporation tax totalling €17.4m. This reduced the company’s accumulated profits to €16m.

Last year, Symantec Ltd announced plans to cut 70 jobs at its Blanchardstown operations following the company’s decision to transfer manufacturing to the Czech Republic.

At the time, Symantec also announced the creation of 45 new telesales jobs in Ireland.

The company provides a broad range of content and network security software and the filings show that the numbers employed at the company dropped last year by 53 from 916 to 863.