The Irish subsidiary of medical devices manufacturer Cook Medical, which employs more than 850 people in Limerick, turned a €3 million loss into a €30.8 million profit last year, according to newly filed accounts.

The jump in profits came as turnover for Cook Ireland Limited rose 14 per cent to €558 million from €489 million a year earlier.

The total tax charge for the company for the year amounted to €3.74 million.

Gross profit for the Irish unit last year totalled €169.9 million compared with €120 million a year earlier.

US stents

The group said 2014 profitability was impacted by an inventory reserve of €21.5 million recorded on stents purchased from a US supplier, with the provision increasing by €3.8 million last year.

Cook, which has been operating in Ireland since 1996, is one of the world's oldest privately owned medical devices firms. The Indiana-headquartered company, which was established in 1963 by William Cook, designs, manufactures and distributes devices used in minimally invasive surgery. It produces more than 16,000 products across 13 hospital service lines, and serves 135 countries.

Manufacturing at the company’s Limerick site accounts for more than 10 per cent of the group’s product output to global markets. The firm announced a €10 million innovation centre at the Limerick facility in 2013.

Loan write-off

Administrative expenses rose to €140.6 million last year, from €123.3 million a year earlier, with a €5.9 million write-off of a loan to a supplier contributing to the increase.

The company, which employed 863 people in Ireland, almost half of whom worked in administration, had staff costs of €38.5 million. Directors’ remuneration totalled €387,353.

The directors were paid a dividend of €709,117 during the year.

Inventory on hand at the end of the year totalled €107.9 million, compared with €101.2 million in the previous year.