Newell and Budge to expand in Ireland

Scottish company Newell & Budge is expanding its presence in Ireland.

In January the company bought Belfast information security company Celare with which it had a long standing alliance.

In March it announced that it was opening a Dublin office and planned to invest £750,000 (€1.1m) in its Irish operations.

This month it has announced the successful growth of its testing services and plans to expand its testing division by 50% year on year.

As part of the expansion plans it has opened a training academy in Dublin.

CEO Anne Budge says that the company has a long term strategy to increase its business by 20% - 25% per annum.

It hopes to be a £50m (€72.6m) company by 2005.

A substantial part of this growth will be in Ireland.

The market in which she sees strongest growth is in the UK testing market which has already seen significant growth in the past three years.

Ms Budge said: "The purchase of Celare is the first step on our acquisition trail and we expect to make further announcements before the end of the year."