Profits at Altera’s Irish arm rise 82%

PRE-TAX profits at the Cork-based Irish arm of the US-owned Altera Corporation increased last year by 82% to $22.4 million (€16.5m), figures show.

According to accounts recently filed with the Companies’ Office, Altera European Trading Company Ltd increased profits after revenues nearly doubled to $804.1m.

The $804m in revenues last year represent 42% of the corporation’s global revenues of $1.9bn in 2010. The company established its European Shared Services Centre at the Cork Airport Business Park in 2004 and the site is the administrative centre for the company’s European region sales and Japanese sales.

Altera designs, manufactures and markets programming logic devices and software development tools.

According to the directors’ report, the increase in revenues is due to a number of factors including the global economic recovery and an industry shift in demand.

The directors state that the pre-tax profits arose primarily from the rise in revenue as well as the company’s cost reduction focus.

The figures show the 77.6% or $624m of the company’s revenues were generated in the EU with the remainder in Japan.

The company had accumulated profits of $92.1m at the end of December last. The firm had cash totalling $324.8m. Shareholder funds at the end of last year totalled $94.6m.

The figures show the company almost doubled its operating profit last year from $11.8m to $22.2m.

The company’s cost of sales last year rose from $395m to $697m with net operating expenses increasing from $76.9m to $83.9m.

The company paid $3m in tax that resulted in a post tax profit of $19.3m.

The filings show that the numbers employed by the firm last year increased by two to 25 with salaries at $1.8m.