SOFTWARE PROVIDER Micro Focus UK is to create 72 new jobs at its Belfast facility. The IT company, which specialises in the development of advanced enterprise software, intends to double its workforce in the North by 2014.
Minister for Enterprise Arlene Foster said the firm hoped to bring its total employment to 120.
She said the latest investment project would deliver a boost to the local economy as it had the potential to generate an additional £2.25 million annually in salaries.
Micro Focus UK was founded in 1976, and has an estimated 18,000 customers. The company has had a foothold in the North since 2009 when it acquired former Belfast-based Borland Software.
Last month Micro Focus UK confirmed it was in talks with a number of potential suitors for the company. Two of these have been identified as the US-based private equity firms Bain Capital and Advent International.
Micro Focus UK’s specialist enterprise software is designed to support a range of activities including application modernisation, software quality management, requirements management and configuration management.
The company has been offered a support package from Invest NI towards the cost of its latest expansion totalling £864,000.
Ms Foster said Micro Focus UK could have chosen to locate the investment decision anywhere in the world. However, Northern Ireland had secured the investment because of a “combination of our talented, skilled people, Invest Northern Ireland support and the positive performance of the company’s existing Belfast facility”.
Paul Rodgers, group HR director at Micro Focus, said the company had been “continually impressed” with the performance of the Belfast operation.
