Twitter posts profit at Irish operation

The Irish arm of Twitter bucked the trend for the international social media giant’s operations by posting a profit.

Twitter, meanwhile, is preparing to move into its new state-of-the-art head office in Dublin on Monday.

The micro-blogging firm, which employs 200 people here and is led by former RTÉ Primetime presenter Mark Little, will make the move after the building’s owners, Hibernia REIT, carried out a €29m refurbishment of the building.

Twitter’s operation in Dublin is the firm’s biggest office outside the US and will occupy most of the office accommodation at Cumberland Place.

Twitter has committed to a 20-year lease for the building. Confirmation of the move coincides with new documentation lodged by Twitter’s Irish arm, Twitter International Company, with the Companies Office showing that the firm bucked the company’s worldwide loss-making performance in 2015.

Globally, Twitter in 2015 recorded pre-tax losses of $533m (€483m) as its revenues increased by 58% to $2.2bn.

However, an auditor’s report for the Dublin-based Twitter International Company shows it posted a profit last year for the second successive year.

The size of the profit is not revealed as Twitter’s company status here in unlimited and is therefore not required to file annual accounts.

Twitter is one of the most high-profile US multinationals to have unlimited status in Ireland, with big players such as Apple and Linkedin along with more recent US firms to base here, including AirBnB and Dropbox, opting for the same status.

Dublin’s Twitter operation is the firm’s European Middle East and African head office. It has 25 different functions, including sales, policy, HR, finance, legal, IT, and engineering.

The firm only established in Ireland in September 2011 but has increased its workforce to more than 200 people. Its workforce is drawn from 30 countries.

Documents filed by Twitter in the US show that $774m of the global revenues in 2015 were based outside the US. Twitter’s Dublin firm would oversee a sizeable chunk of those revenues, given its responsibility for the EMEA region.

As part of the deal to lease the space at Cumberland Place, Twitter will pay an initial rent of €4.6m per annum, equating to an average of €50 per sq ft for the office space.

Hibernian recently announced that it has let the remaining 33,000 sq ft available space to Travelport. The two lease agreements bring Hibernia’s total contracted annual rent roll to over €45m for the building.