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Redomiciled PLCs 2021

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Net Income of Redomiciled PLCs was €9.98bn in 2021

Background

Increasingly, for highly globalised countries such as Ireland, it is important to account for globalisation effects in data. These Redomiciled PLCs have, as previously illustrated, significant impacts in some of our statistical outputs. In order to account for these impacts, it is important to separate those figures which are influenced by these Redomiciled PLCs and illustrate which data is reflective of firms that are native to Ireland i.e. those firms which have originated here.

While in CSO publications, we refer to these firms as Redomiciled PLCs, international organisations have termed the concept “corporate inversion”. The OECD’s BPM6 manual defines a corporate inversion as “corporate restructuring of a transnational enterprise group such that the original parent company in one economy becomes a subsidiary of the new parent in another economy. In addition, ownership of a group of enterprises may be shifted to the new parent company.”

Beginning in 2008, in reaction to proposed changes to corporate tax rates in the United Kingdom and the United States, a number of multinational corporations relocated their group headquarters to Ireland. Since that year, there have been additional firms that have relocated while some opted to leave.

Total Net IncomeNet Income minus Redomiciled PLC's
2013-28.069-34.543
2014-30.341-37.192
2015-60.785-65.448
2016-49.912-55.692
2017-61.063-65.52
2018-73.44-78.352
2019-79.838-84.699797101
2020-92.2248662629999-96.4805037269999
2021-102.848773944-112.827698164
Table 6.1 Net Income of Redomiciled PLCs€ million
 201320142015201620172018201920202021
Total6,4746,8514,6635,7804,4574,9124,8624,2569,979

In 2021 the net income of redomiciled PLCs was €9.98bn. Figure 6.1 shows the effect of the net income of redomiciled PLCs in the balance of payments primary income figures. Users often refer to primary income as the repatriated profits of multinationals based in Ireland. This group of PLCs reduce that outflow in the balance of payments as shown in Figure 6.1.

Redomiciled PLC'sRemainder of FDI
2013210177.8
2014324185.7
2015472363.5
2016443369.6
2017347475.8
2018371467.9
2019525476.7
2020443.8535
2021651619.8

The foreign assets of these enterprises are classified as ‘Direct Investment Abroad’ in the International Investment Position (IIP) statistics. These PLCs have had a significant effect on the stock of Irish FDI abroad, as shown in Figure 6.2.

Liabilities of all other firmsRedomiciled PLC Liabilities
20131728.656205
20142037.508327
20152324.428474
20162467.5442
20172737.512405
20182779.291393
20193497.976477
20203808.387466.529
20214625.505673.613

As none of the shareholders own more than 10% of the equity in these companies, their liabilities are classified in the IIP as ‘Portfolio Investment – Equity’. Proportionally they have a smaller impact on this sub-heading as Portfolio Investment liabilities are dominated by investment funds. Redomiciled PLCs data, compared to Ireland's total Portfolio liability, is shown in Figure 6.3.