Waterford-based firm’s turnover decreased ‘due to product mix and transfer prices across the group’
New accounts show that Sanofi subsidiary Genzyme Ireland Ltd paid out the dividend as pre-tax profits increased by 6.5pc from €308.29m to €328.5m.
This followed revenues declining by 8pc last year from €1.78bn to €1.65bn.
Sanofi purchased Genzyme’s global business in 2011 and since then has invested over €700m in the Waterford facility.
Genzyme is one of the largest private employers in the south-east where employee numbers further increased last year from 905 to 959.
In October of last year, Waterford man Cian O’Brien was appointed site head at Sanofi Waterford and replaced Kilkenny woman Amy Brennan, who departed her Waterford post to a new role as head of rare disease, oncology and immunology (RDOI) cluster for Sanofi.
Mr O’Brien joined the Waterford team as a project engineer in 2003 and was a member of the site leadership team since 2019.
The directors state that Genzyme’s turnover decreased “due to the product mix and transfer prices across the group”.
The workforce at the Waterford site is made up of 345 in manufacturing, 318 in quality, research and development, 142 in administration, 84 in engineering and 70 in materials.
Underlining the contribution of the Waterford site to the local economy, staff costs last year increased from €90.1m to €99.9m that included share-based payments of €2.12m.
Pay to directors last year increased from €475,000 to €551,000, made up of emoluments totalling €515,000 and pension contributions of €36,000.
The company recorded post-tax profits of €281.39m after incurring a corporation tax charge of €47.12m.
The corporation tax charge included a €7.8m “domestic top-up tax charge”. A note states: “The company is subject to domestic top-up tax under Pillar Two tax legislation. The top-up tax relates to the company’s operations in Ireland.”
Established in Waterford in 2001, Sanofi Waterford is a primary distribution centre for many of the firm’s major treatments. The revenues were generated by €1.44bn in pharma sales and interest received from group undertakings amounting to €212.63m.
The firm’s spend in R&D last year decreased from €13m to €12.8m while combined non-cash depreciation and impairment costs totalled €33.34m. The profit also takes account of exchange different losses of €2.45m.
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