Irish Life pays €1.85bn of dividends in dozen years under Canadian ownership
The payouts, which include €29.5 million handed over in March, eclipse the €1.3 billion that Winnipeg-based Great-West Lifeco paid for the Republic's largest life and pensions group in 2013 when it bought the business from the State. The dividend were paid to Irish Life Group's immediate parent in the UK.
Irish Life Group, the holding company at the top of the group, led by chief executive
Declan Bolger
, saw its net profit decline 53 per cent last year to €223.9 million, according to its latest set of accounts, filed with the Companies Registration Office this week.
This was down to a decline in dividends from its main subsidiary, Irish Life Assurance, to €215 million from €314.6 million in 2023.
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However, the previous year's payments from the unit had been driven by a once-off €115 million special dividend from a sale of a tranche of business to AIB Life, a new life and pensions joint venture set up by AIB and another arm of Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life Ireland Holdings Ltd, in 2023.
Dividends from Irish Life Health fell by 50 per cent to €11 million last year, the report said.
Both subsidiaries 'continued to be profitable during 2024' and maintained solvency reserves above what has been targeted by the group, it added.
The State bought Irish Life in 2011 from PTSB, then known as Irish Life & Permanent, for €1.3 billion to limit the taxpayer bailout bill for the mortgage-focused lender. It subsequently sold the business in 2013 for the same price to Great-West Lifeco. PTSB remains 57 per cent owned by the Government.
Former Irish Life chief executive David Harney became CEO of Great-West Lifeco at the start of this month, succeeding Paul Mahon, who has led the group for 12 years.
Mr Harney, a Roscommon native, joined Irish Life straight from school almost four decades ago and ultimately served as its head for four years, before becoming president and chief operating officer for Europe for Great-West Lifeco in 2020.
While Irish Life has paid big dividends to its Canadian parent over the years, its owner has also backed the business in investing to grow its customer base by more than 50 per cent over the period, helped by acquisitions.
Purchases included financial advice companies Invesco, Acumen & Trust and APT. In 2021, the group paid €230 million for Ark Life, the former AIB life insurance arm that stopped taking new business in 2012 and where Irish Life had been the administrator of policies and manager of investments. The seller was ReAssure Limited, a UK company that specialises in managing closed books.
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