Five staff at a Dublin-based aircraft leasing firm have received on average salaries and bonuses totalling over $1.5 million (€1.1 million) each over the past two years.
New accounts filed by BOC Aviation (Ireland) Ltd, a subsidiary of Bank of China, show that the firm’s pre-tax profits more than doubled to $37 million (€27.5 million) as revenues increased by 31 per cent to $163.8 million in the 12 months to the end of December last.
The accounts show that the firm’s five employees last year shared $2.42 million in salaries and bonuses – or an average of $485,000 each.
However, the 2012 payout represents a sharp decrease on the 2011 staff payout when the five staff received on average over $1 million each. That year, the five staff shared $5.64 million or $1.12 million each.
Directors' salaries last year totalled $2.2 million. Robert Burke, Robert Martin and Peter Goodman are listed as directors with Jonathan Mahony listed as an alternate to Mr Martin and Daniel Healy listed as alternate to Peter Goodman.
The Dublin firm is the Irish arm of BOC Aviation that is headquartered in Singapore and wholly owned by the Bank of China.
The accounts show that the five staff clocked up countless air-miles last year with travel expenses increasing marginally from $452,539 to $462,779.
The BOC portfolio is one of the youngest in the leasing business with an average owned- aircraft age of under four years. The firm's fleet is primarily based on the Airbus A320 family and Boeing Next Generation 737 series, as well as the Embraer 190/195 aircraft.
Profits last year include non-cash depreciation costs of $37.9 million. According to the directors’ report, they consider “the state of the affairs of the company to be satisfactory”. Its accumulated profits totalled $57.8 million at the end of December last with shareholder funds totalling $207.89 million. The firm’s cash declined marginally from $14.99 million to $13.59 million.
Pay for executives in aircraft-leasing firms tends to be extremely high. Nine of the world’s top 10 aircraft leasing firms are based in Ireland where they employ 1,000 people directly and 2,000 indirectly.
