ONLINE AUCTION company eBay has strengthened to the tune of €40 million the balance sheet of the Irish entity that owns the intellectual property rights for its internet telephony unit Skype, official filings reveal.

Recently filed accounts for Dublin-based Skype Ltd, whose ultimate parent is eBay Inc in California, show that the company's immediate parent in Luxembourg made a capital contribution of €25 million to the business last June and a contribution of €15 million in January.

Skype Ltd incurred a pretax loss of €40.09 million in 2007 - almost doubling annual pretax losses of €21.5 million - after a big increase in research and development spending to €32.43 million from €19.54 million.

This firm, which licenses Skype technology to its parent and provides technical and other support to its parent, had a turnover of €1.27 million in 2007, up from €851,762 in the previous period.

The business is one of several registered by eBay at the headquarters of its Irish unit in Blanchardstown, Dublin. EBay, which set up its Irish operation in 2005, now employs a total of 1,200 people at that location.

EBay's Dublin spokesman declined to provide a consolidated turnover figure for its overall Irish business. However, filings in recent days for Dublin subsidiary eBay Europe Services show it had a turnover of €32.25 million from the 18 months following its incorporation until December 2007. This unit had a pretax profit of €484,000 and an operating loss of €26,000.

Another subsidiary in Dublin, Kijiji International, saw its turnover rise to €54.32 million in 2007 from €30.36 million a year earlier. This business, which provides classified advertising services on the internet, saw its pretax loss reduced to €5.06 million from €7.89 million in the same period. An operating profit of €934,000 contrasted with an operating loss of €8.16 million a year earlier.

Kijiji International, which in 2005 spent €291 million buying out classified internet advertisers Gumtree, Marketplaats and OpusForum, took a €6.71 million impairment charge last year in respect of its investment in OpusForum.

A separate eBay company in Dublin, PayPal Europe Services, reported turnover of €68.57 million for the period from its incorporation in June 2006 until December 2007. It had a pretax profit of €44,000 and an operating loss of €85,000.

In 2006, a Singaporean eBay subsidiary called PayPal International gifted PayPal Europe Services the customer service support trade for PayPal "at nil consideration", the accounts state.