The ESB has attributed its dramatic drop in profits for last year to increased fuel prices and to costs involved in the company's restructuring programme.
It said the restructuring charge of £236m provided for costs involved in the company's programme for change recently agreed by the unions at ESB, which will see a decrease of 2,000 in the workforce in the next three years.
In the first year of deregulation of the Irish market, ESB's turnover increased to £1,492m in 2000 from £1,355m in 1999.
ESB's profit after tax and exceptional items was £31m, compared with £216m in 1999. This included a profit of £86m from the sale of Ocean to BT.
Tadhg O'Donoghue, ESB's chairman, said it was appropriate to make provision for restructuring costs in the accounts. He said: 'the last restructuring programme...had successfully delivered more than £60m in net savings each year since implementation in the 1990s, and that this present change programme would also deliver major savings and efficiencies.'
The annual report also shows that ESB's borrowings increased by £6m to £661m over the year. Mr O'Donoghue said: 'The ratio of debt/debt plus net assets however remains unchanged at 31%, and shows the strength of the company's balance sheet.'
He said that the: 'ESB is competing, successfully, in the tough new environment and is preparing all the elements of the business for the fully open market in 2005.'
Earlier this month, the ESB's plans to bid for the G8 Group of Electricity Companies in Poland was thwarted. A cabinet sub-committee decided that in view of the ESB commitments to spend over £2 billion on infrastructure in Ireland over the next three to four years, the sum of money involved in the bid was too much.
