Viasystems buyout saves jobs in Northern IrelandHarry YeatesViasystems' EMS plant at Ballynahinch in Northern Ireland has been bought by its management team and renamed Nitronica.
Details of the deal have not been released, but the emergent firm has secured independent financing and is wholly owned by its management. All 68 employees have been retained.
"Nitronica has a strong core business with significant diversification achieved in the past 12 months," said John Mellon, the firm's MD and former chief financial officer of Viasystems. The new company has formed an alliance with Viasystems for manufacturing capability both locally and in the Far East.
"That relationship is very much part of the deal," said Mellon, "our type of market is small to medium volume manufacture, and prototyping." Without Nitronica, Mellon said Viasystems would no longer have prototyping capacity in Europe.
The firm continues to work with Viasystems customers, including Siemens, BT, Sanmina, Marconi, and Celerity, and has finalised two-year contracts with a number of these accounts. "We'll be trying to build a name for ourselves in the market this year," said Mellon. "We've been picking up quite a few new customers in the past six weeks."
Nitronica manufactures products for the professional audio, telecoms, health electronics, semiconductor and networking markets.
Viasystems closed PCB plants on Tyneside last year, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. Its South Shields operation became Circatex in December 2001, after a management buyout saved the jobs of the majority of an 800-strong workforce.