Irish staff help Boston Scientific to €1.5bn payout

Gordon Deegan The 5,000 people working at sites in Cork, Galway, and Clonmel for Boston Scientific helped the US medical device manufacturer post a dividend of $1.8bn (€1.5bn) out of Ireland to its parent last year.

The 5,000 people working at sites in Cork, Galway, and Clonmel for Boston Scientific helped the US medical device manufacturer post a dividend of $1.8bn (€1.5bn) out of Ireland to its parent last year.

The company is one of Ireland’s largest companies and new accounts show that its Irish firm which also includes a large number of overseas’ companies posted a 15% increase in profits to $654.3m (€565m) on revenues that were up 4% to $3.6bn.

Pre-tax profits were down 17% to $568m, though 2016 pre-tax profits had been boosted by an exceptional gain of $187m. The firm paid a corporation tax bill of only $11.4m because of a $67.5m reduction through “different tax rates on overseas earnings”, according to the Irish company’s accounts.

Staff costs at the company increased from $251.68m to $266.59m. The $1.8bn dividend payout meant the group’s accumulated profits fell from $2bn to $763.39m.

The profit last year takes account of non-cash amortisation and depreciation costs of $224m and research and development expenditure of $592m.

The accounts also disclose that an agreement between the IDA and Boston Scientific specifies the company has a liability to repay covering grants amounting to $38.7m if certain conditions in a five-year plan are not met.

In the accounts, the directors said that it had a gross margin of 42%, unchanged in the year, and had an operating margin of 18% last year, compared with a margin of 16% in 2016.