BELFAST BRIEFING:THERE ARE likely to be few company bosses waving goodbye to 2011 in Northern Ireland with a smile on their face.

However, there are at least two in the North who may be planning something of a little New Year’s Eve gathering to celebrate a rather memorable 12 months.

Philip Cassidy and Pádraig Canavan certainly deserve a slap on the back for their respective successes in 2011 – and if anyone can afford to throw the party of the season, it is them.

Cassidy and Canavan are probably the envy of every struggling entrepreneur in Northern Ireland who at this moment can only dream of selling their business to an American corporation with deep pockets.

Not so long ago they were the pair of risk-takers with the then ambitious business dreams.

Eleven years ago Cassidy founded Gem, a Belfast-based company that has evolved into a multichannel, multilingual call centre operator.

The company, which was privately owned by Cassidy and his investors, employs more than 700 people in Northern Ireland and in Debrecen, in Hungary.

Its success sparked rumours of potential suitors circling for some time but during the year it was acquired by Synnex Corporation, the California-headquartered business process services group.

No financial details relating to the deal have been disclosed. The American group simply confirmed that Gem will become part of its business services division.

Cassidy, who was Gem’s chief executive, and his management team say they intend to remain with the company.

Canavan, meanwhile, set up his company, Singularity, in 1994. He also sold it to a US group during the year.

California-based Kofax agreed a deal with Canavan that could be worth $48.1 million.

Singularity, which was also privately owned, is a Derry-based IT software provider employing more than 215 people in Derry, Belfast, London and Hyderabad, in India

Canavan, who was the majority shareholder, has joined Kofax as a senior vice-president.

Cassidy and Canavan follow in the footsteps of other Northern Ireland entrepreneurs who joined forces with US corporations such as the team behind Belfast-based Lagan Technologies.

They sold their software company to the US group Kana in 2010 and since then the organisation has not looked back.

Belfast became Kana Software’s European headquarters and this year it followed up its initial Northern Ireland acquisition with a £7 million investment which is likely to create 109 jobs.

The latest multimillion dollar deals prove there is always a glimmer of hope behind even the gloomiest economic clouds – and there have been some very dark days in the North this year.

Company closures, personal bankruptcies and business failures have become increasingly common place as Northern Ireland’s economy continues to struggle on all fronts.

There has also been the growing “Nama effect”, with the Republic’s National Asset Management Agency moving up a gear on the number of properties it has repossessed north of the Border in 2011.

Nama, despite its continual protests that it will not engage in fire sales in Northern Ireland, has become a major player in the local economy, where it currently controls more than £3.5 billion of property loans.

One unavoidable side effect of the economic slowdown has been the rise of unemployment in the North over the past 12 months.

Last month’s dole queue rose to 60,900 – the highest figure on record since September 1997.

Since the downturn began to spread in August 2007, the number out of work in the North has risen by 37,400.

This means the much-heralded prospects of a peace dividend have simply evaporated following the meltdown of global financial markets.

Negative equity, job fears and the cost of living dominate the domestic economic horizon.

Richard Ramsey, chief economist with Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland, believes Northern Ireland’s recession was much deeper than previously estimated, and this continued to play out during 2011.

He highlights official figures which show that following growth of 3.1 per cent (real terms) in 2007, the North’s economy contracted by “3.1 per cent in 2008 and by a hefty 6 per cent in 2009”. This makes the resilience of locally headquartered companies such as Crumlin-based Randox Laboratories – which during the year unveiled plans to create 242 jobs as part of a £15.8 million expansion – and Newry’s First Derivatives, which announced a project to create 359 jobs – even more impressive given the climate they now operate in.

Homegrown talent has also helped companies such as west Belfast-based Andor Technology – which in the past year confirmed plans to create 166 additional jobs in an £18 million investment – continue to grow despite the severe international economic environment they compete in.

Northern Ireland may have suffered more than its fair share of job losses during 2011 but it has also enjoyed some significant employment gains.

These include Deloitte, which plans to create 125 jobs in Belfast over the next two years, and PwC, which also intends to expand its Northern Ireland operations by creating a further 247 jobs.

Major reinvestment projects by the likes of Schrader Electronics, which unveiled a £29 million commitment for its plants in Antrim and Carrickfergus, not only create opportunities but also safeguard existing jobs in the North.

The decision taken this year by HBO, the American cable network, to return to film the second series of its hit TV show Game of Thronesin Northern Ireland will also deliver a jobs boost for the local TV and film industry.

Game of Thronesis set in a medieval fantasy world but given some of the dramas that have played out in the local economy in 2011 – see Seán Quinn for starters – it is clear that heroes and bad guys are not just for the small screen.

Take Danny Moore, for instance, the former chief executive of NYSE Technologies, who set up Lough Shore Investments, a “small investment shop” in Northern Ireland that wants to “bring 10 great companies to exit or IPO by 2025”.

Or Peter Curistan, the Belfast-based property developer who has become something of a reluctant campaigner of sorts for Northern Ireland developers against Anglo Irish Bank.

The bank claims Curistan and his companies owe them tens of millions of pounds – he is fighting their actions every step of the way.

Like many of the Dublin-based banks, Anglo, or the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation as it is now, is likely to be cast as one of the bad guys in the North for some time to come.