Italian banking giant UniCredito received a €57 million dividend last year from its IFSC unit.
Accounts recently filed in the Companies Office reveal that dividend from the Dublin operation was up from €51 million in 2003. The unit, which is chaired by Independent News & Media chairman Dr Brian Hillery, employs 19 staff.
The dividend from UniCredito Italiano Bank (Ireland) increased as its pretax profits rose to €65.43 million last year from €59.08 million in 2003. However, the accounts show that the IFSC office received a special capital contribution of €243 million last May from its Milan-based parent, UniCredito Italiano SpA.
Details about the Dublin unit's financial performance emerged as its parent group disclosed yesterday that it was in talks to buy the second-biggest German lender, HVB Group.
The accounts for UniCredito's Irish operation show that its net interest income grew to €66.67 million last year from €52.66 million in 2003.
Operating profits grew to €70.11 million from €63.26 million. After taxes of €6.7 million, the bank's 2004 profit was €58.74 million.
Retained profits at the end of the year rose to €12.81 million from €11.07 million, according to the bank's balance sheet. The balance sheet also indicates that the assets of the IFSC unit included €125.17 million in central banks, €4.56 billion in loans and advances to banks and €10.89 billion in debt securities.
Liabilities included €6.17 billion in deposits by banks, €8.68 billion in debt securities in issue and €131.89 million in customer accounts. A takeover of HVB could cost the bank €16 billion, making such a deal Europe's biggest cross-border merger to date. The largest previous deal was the takeover of British bank Abbey National by Santander of Spain for £9.65 billion.
However, both banks said in a statement that "no agreement has been reached and the outcome of the discussions is still subject to considerable uncertainty".
If successful, the deal would be the first foreign takeover of a major German bank. An all-paper transaction could value HVB at €22 per share, or €16 billion.
