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The Irish subsidiary of enterprise software provider Micro Focus, formerly Novell Ireland, declared a $179.8 million (€153m) dividend in its last financial year after disposing of a UK-based unit it formerly owned.
The dividend came despite profits falling by 11 per cent during the 12-month period as turnover remained largely unchanged at €272.9 million.
Micro Focus (Software) Ireland Limited, whose parent last year agreed a $8.8 billion reverse takeover of Hewlett Packard Enterprises' software business, employs more than 100 people in Ireland.
Newly-filed accounts for the company show pretax profits declined from €69.3 million to €61.5 million for the 12 months ending April 30th, 2017.
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The subsidiary’s turnover comes from software licences, maintenance and services. It designs and builds software to help businesses manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments.
The company owns Novell operations in Germany and the Czech Republic. During the financial year under review it disposed of its investment in Novell UK Software to Novell Caymen Software, partly through the $179 million (€152.3m) dividend and by way of an intracompany receivable of $117.9 million (€100.4m).
Irish unit
Prior to the disposal of Novell UK Software Limited an impairment of $2.05 million (€1.74m) was recognised, resulting in the transfer of a $297.8 million (€253.5m) investment to the Irish unit.
The Irish subsidiary also has a majority stake in Novell Ireland Real Estate, a Dublin-based company engaged in investment activities that retained earnings of $14.5 million (€12.3m) in fiscal 2016
The latest accounts show the subsidiary employed 111 people, with staff costs totalling €8.1 million.
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