Liberty Mutual, the American financial services giant, will announce details today of a further investment boost for its Northern Ireland operation that could create 100 jobs. Mr Terry Conner, senior vice-president of Liberty Mutual, is expected to outline details of the second phase of investment for the group's IT subsidiary in Belfast during a visit to the city.
Liberty Information Technology was established in Belfast in 1997 to support its parent company's operations in the United States.
The £6-million sterling (€10 million) project was hailed at that time as a major coup for the North's Industrial Development Board because it was one of the first software investment projects by a US group in Northern Ireland.
Today, Liberty Information Technology employs 100 people in the North and the US Fortune 500 company wants to double its workforce in Belfast by implementing an "aggressive growth programme" and focusing on "e-commerce applications".
The US company is earmarking further expansion for the subsidiary at a time when the global IT industry is overshadowed by cost reduction programmes and massive redundancy projections.
Mr Conner is a strong supporter of the Northern Ireland subsidiary, which he has variously described as "one of the most profitable investments the group had ever made" and one of the most "high-tech development centres in the software industry".
He said Liberty Mutual had decided to reinvest in the facility for the same reasons it had originally decided to locate in Belfast.
"The next generation software we required was very complex and as a result the board decided to seek an offshore solution. Having short-listed India, Israel and the Republic, Northern Ireland was the company's preferred location due to its technical skill base, R&D culture and low cost business environment," Mr Conner said.
He said the Belfast division had made a strong contribution to the group's growth in the last four years.
"There is no limit to where the company can grow to and it has the potential to double in size over the next two to three years," Mr Conner said.
