Andor Technology raise €6.5m after flotation

BELFAST-BASED digital camera manufacturer Andor Technology raised stg£4.5 million (€6.5 million) yesterday after floating on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

The company, which employs 145 in the Springvale business park in the west of the city, said it would use the money on further research and development, develop new sales channels and invest in equipment that would allow greater automation in its processes.

Yesterday’s flotation valued the company, which was set up in 1989 as a campus company operating out of Queen’s University, at approximately stg£23 million.

Chief executive Hugh Cormican, who co-founded the company when working as a physicist at the university, said listing on AIM was a critical step in Andor’s development. “This listing will raise the equity funds necessary for us to accelerate the company’s strategic aims and will also raise Andor’s profile among suppliers and both existing and potential new customers,” he said.

Andor makes high-quality digital cameras and similar devices that are used in the medical profession, including X-ray cameras and imaging equipment. It sells its products to customers in 29 countries, with sales offices in the northeastern American states of Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts, in California on the west coast, and in Japan.