FinTrU to create over 600 new jobs in Belfast and Londonderry as part of £38m expansion

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FinTrU to create over 600 new jobs in Belfast and Londonderry as part of £38m expansion

Invest Northern Ireland’s Chief Executive, Alastair Hamilton has announced that 605 new jobs are to be created by multi-award winning financial services firm FinTrU over the next five years.

This significant expansion by FinTrU will see it establish a new operation in Derry with 305 new jobs and create a further 300 new roles in Belfast.

L-R Alastair Hamilton, CEO of Invest NI and Darragh McCarthy, CEO of FinTrU

L-R Alastair Hamilton, CEO of Invest NI and Darragh McCarthy, CEO of FinTrU

Welcoming the major investment, Alastair Hamilton said: “Today’s announcement is another significant re-investment by FinTrU which will create over 600 new jobs for graduates and professionals in the Financial Services industry.

“We are delighted to have played such a significant role in the company’s rapid growth to date. The new jobs to be recruited over the next five years will generate over £15million in additional annual salaries for the local economy.

Invest NI has offered £3.2million of support for the new jobs and the Department for the Economy has offered £2.4million of support through its Assured Skills Programme.

“The company will create 305 of the new jobs in Derry which is a great endorsement of the wealth of talent in the North West. This investment will also make a significant contribution to Northern Ireland’s flourishing Financial Services sector and will deliver a projected £20million in additional new export sales for the company.” continued Alastair.

FinTrU provides regulatory resourcing services, including legal, risk, compliance, KYC, operations and consultancy, to Investment Banks and other financial institutions. It established its Belfast centre of excellence in 2014, with initial plans to recruit 80 staff and has since grown successfully to now employing over 240 staff.

Darragh McCarthy, FinTrU Founder and CEO said: “Our current operation in Belfast has been hugely successful which has been driven by the exceptional talent we have been able to recruit in Northern Ireland. FinTrU has won two ‘Fast Growth Business of the Year’ awards in 2018 and we are delighted to continue our expansion in other areas of Northern Ireland.

After reviewing a number of locations, I had no hesitation about expanding our presence into the North West due to the highly attractive location and the availability of talent that the region offers. Whilst managed as a profit-driven organisation, I see FinTrU as having a social purpose to create high-quality professional employment in Northern Ireland.

“After reviewing a number of locations, I had no hesitation about expanding our presence into the North West due to the highly attractive location and the availability of talent that the region offers. Whilst managed as a profit-driven organisation, I see FinTrU as having a social purpose to create high-quality professional employment in Northern Ireland.”

Darragh, who is a finalist in this year’s EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, added: “Our partnership over the last few years with Invest NI has been invaluable to our growth. We are also working with the Department for the Economy through its Assured Skills Programme, Belfast Metropolitan College and the North West Regional College to establish a Graduate Academy which will result in a considerable investment in training for our new employees.”

Noel Lavery, Permanent Secretary at the Department for the Economy said: “Since 2014 we have worked with FinTrU helping them recruit the talent they need to grow their business through the Department’s pre-employment skills training programme, ‘Assured Skills’.

“175 of the current FinTrU staff complement are former Assured Skills Academy graduates, highlighting the impressive talent we have in Northern Ireland. It is planned that, over the next 5 years,500 of the 605 jobs announced today will be delivered through a series of future Assured Skills Academies, providing high quality employment opportunities for graduates in the growing financial services sector.”

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MANUFACTURING LOCALLY, SELLING GLOBALLY CREATES MORE JOBS AT FLEMING AGRI

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MANUFACTURING LOCALLY, SELLING GLOBALLY CREATES MORE JOBS AT FLEMING AGRI

Fleming Agri Products is a fifth generation family business manufacturing a range of agricultural and grounds-care machinery at their factory in Newbuildings. With almost 90% of production exported outside Northern Ireland, the company see a solid future in the viability of engineering and manufacturing in the North West region.

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Approximately 12,000 machines came off the production line in 2017 and were shipped to an extensive network of dealers and importers worldwide. Fleming’s have put a dedicated Export Manager in place in 2016 and have been growing and developing new export markets in France,
Denmark, Latvia, Spain, Slovakia, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, and most recently the USA and Russia.

The Fleming factory has been operating a two shift pattern up to the start of 2018, but
due to increased demand from both the domestic and export markets for Fleming products, the workforce has had to be increased to create a third shift. This has created 10 further new job roles initially with further growth in employment as this new shift develops and increases the production output.

Plans for a new 25,000 sq. ft. factory extension are currently being put together to
streamline the production flow and create capacity and capability for new products
designed and developed in recent years to come online. Currently Fleming’s employ 110 staff and the proposed new expansion will create a further 25 new positions at their base in Newbuildings.
For further details and employment opportunities with Fleming Agri Products please see; www.fleming-agri.co.uk

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ALLSTATE EMBRACES THE ‘COGNITIVE ERA

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ALLSTATE EMBRACES THE ‘COGNITIVE ERA

Whatever the sector, all industries are facing disruption by digital technologies and
business models. This is presenting significant threats and opportunities for the
technology and insurance industry. Allstate Northern Ireland Senior Manager, Kathryn Harkin, shares how Allstate is embracing these opportunities to leverage the latest cognitive approaches in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) here in the North West.

“To maximise the opportunities big data provides, Allstate has created the new Allstate NI Cognitive Automation Incubator team to use ML technologies, transforming this data to provide meaningful insights. “ACAI, pronounced Ak-I, is Allstate Northern Ireland’s Cognitive Automation Incubator. It’s an immersive learning environment across a number of related disciplines, including Robotic Process Automation, Chatbots and Machine Learning. The initial focus will be on building up these much sought-after skills.

“ACAI will enable research in cognitive analytics and emerging technologies, running of proof of concepts, as well as incubating and developing prototypes to create innovative solutions for Allstate.

“Resources will stay in the ACAI environment for approximately 12-18 months working on real business problems before graduating. These teams will then lead the way in building a
community of citizen data scientists, expanding the influence of data science and analytics across the Allstate organisation.

“At a time of the 4th industrial revolution, the cognitive era isn’t about machines replacing humans. Automation will allow Allstate to introduce efficiencies and reduce repetitive, manual tasks currently done by our people.“An example of this is improving call centre efficiencies with the use of a Chabot interface using natural language processing. This will free up call centre staff for higher-value, more complex interaction.

“Using Machine Learning techniques to gain better insights from Allstate’s vast data reservoirs will ensure we make better data based decisions, focus on customer needs, offer personalised products, reduce claim time and improve the overall insurance experience,” concludes Kathryn.

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US SPIRITS COMPANY ACQUIRES STAKE IN DERRY’S NICHE DRINKS

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US SPIRITS COMPANY ACQUIRES STAKE IN DERRY’S NICHE DRINKS
A US spirits company in Missouri has acquired a stake in a Londonderry liqueur firm as they look to build a distillery in the city.

Luxco in St Louis and Niche Drinks already produce Saint Brendan’s Irish Cream and global
brand, The Quiet Man Irish whiskey. In a statement, the company said it had spoken to the Strategic Investment Board to discuss building an Irish whiskey distillery in Ebrington Square in
Derry. Ciaran Mulgrew, managing director of Niche Drinks, said: “Luxco has impressive distillery experience, having built Lux Row Distillers and partnered with Limestone Branch Distillery, both in Kentucky, and is nearing completion of a Tequila distillery in Arandas, Mexico.

“This experience will be a tremendous asset as we proceed with The Quiet Man Craft Distillery at Ebrington Square.” Mr Mulgrew is to remain with the business
following the transaction.

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Derry firm Blockception leads global Minecraft building boom

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Derry company Blockception is taking the world by storm with its virtual creations for blockbuster game ‘Minecraft’. The Campsie-based company was recently honoured as ‘North West Creative Industries Business of the Year’ in recognition of its leadership in a global marketplace for Minecraft ‘maps’.

The business essentially creates sets of Lego-like virtual building blocks and items to enable Minecraft gamers to build different environments from their imaginations. “If you can dream it, we can make it,” explains 21 year-old Derry man Jonathan Black who, along with joint Managing Director Alex Bellavita (24), formed Blockception in 2015. The whizzkids hit the mother lode last year when their company was one of only nine pioneer Minecraft partners selected from around the world by Microsoft to launch its Minecraft Marketplace Programme.

Blockception’s limited edition creation, Lost Civilisation, was downloaded more than 1.1 million times over the Christmas period – with 850,000 in a single day. Jonathan explains: “Lost Civilisation was part of a 12-day marketing campaign by Microsoft around Christmas. Microsoft wanted to release a free product from one of their partners and ours was chosen. “It was a set based on a Machu Picchu-inspired world that the user could explore. For Christmas, we added snow to give it a festive feel.”

Prior to the approach from Microsoft, the business was being sustained by local projects including a virtual recreation of Derry’s Guildhall. “Culture Tech asked us to do a project on the ‘Four Wonders of Northern Ireland’: The Guildhall, Mussenden Temple, Harland and Wolff and Belfast City Hall. We also recreated 17th century Carrickfergus for Carrickfergus Museum. “But the jobs were not flooding in and we were putting a lot of effort in for very little return. A week before Microsoft approached us, we had agreed to hand over to another company. Just a day before the handover, Alex got the email about Lost Civilisation,” Jonathan says. Alex explains: “We were so close to moving away from Minecraft. It seems unthinkable now. We got an email and everything kicked off again.

After Lost Civilisation, Microsoft came calling once more. “We were asked to help launch a new programme – a completely new revenue model for Minecraft. The Minecraft Marketplace Programme would not launch until June 2017 and we were very privileged to get in at the start,” Alex adds. Blockception was registered as a limited company on March 2, 2017. Trading became very brisk after the Marketplace launch. Alex and Jonathan have themselves enjoyed playing Minecraft for many years and that now allows them to create maps that have real appeal for gamers. Jonathan explains:

“We’ve been playing Minecraft for a long time – I started playing it at 14. We’ve had a long time to learn things from a consumer point of view. We’ve now gone full circle – ‘players to providers’.”

Blockception has a Minecraft build team of more than 50 environment designers, programmers and field experts, in countries around the world. Jonathan says: “The vast skill of our team allows us to tackle all types of Minecraft maps and achieve the ambitions of our clients, however imaginative. “We create custom-built maps that include but are not limited to minigame maps, adventure maps, hubs, concepts and film sets. “Our aim is always to produce fun-filled, immersive content, which is distributed at affordable prices and enjoyed by millions globally, regardless of language or age.”

Blockception was invited to the world renowned Gamescom in Cologne last August to showcase a project named ‘Kingdom Assault’. Another of the company’s offerings, ‘Whiterock Castle’, topped the Marketplace Purchases League Table for four out of the first five months that it was first listed on the Minecraft Store in September, 2017.

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Meanwhile, Blockception shared the North West Business Awards honour for Creative Industries Business of the Year at last Friday night’s ceremony hosted by the local Chamber of Commerce and City Centre Initiative at the City Hotel. Jonathan said: “It is a great achievement for such a young company and wouldn’t have been possible without such a talented and dedicated workforce.” For more, check out blockception.com

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Innovation at the heart of North West Brewery

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Innovation at the heart of North West Brewery

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Walled City Brewery, located in Derry’s exciting new cultural quarter Ebrington Square, has been assisted by Invest Northern Ireland to develop a new craft beer.

Master Brewer, James Huey used an Invest NI £5,000 Innovation Voucher to develop the recipe for its ‘1689’ Mumm ale, which comes from a recipe dating back to the Siege of Derry.

Dr Vicky Kell, Invest NI’s Director of Innovation, Research & Development said: “Walled City Brewery is an example of a small company with big ambition. The Innovation Voucher enabled Walled City Brewery to work with the Foodovation Centre at North West Regional College, perfecting the first alcohol product to be developed at the state-of-the-art new food technology facility. Using the Voucher to access relevant expertise at an early stage has greatly increased the focus and potential success of the product.

“Our Innovation Voucher programme is a valuable assistance mechanism for ambitious companies who wish to explore an idea that could help them compete more effectively in global markets.”

The company also benefited from Invest NI’s technical advice to assist with intellectual property, legislation and design issues.

Master Brewer, James Huey explained,“With the help of Invest NI and an Innovation Voucher, I am delighted Walled City Brewery has produced a product that the city can be proud of, that is immersed in history and reflects the fantastic array of local ingredients that we have in the North West.”

The Innovation Voucher facilitated recipe formulation, ingredient selection, testing and shelf life. From research it was established that the original recipe had more than 77 different herbs and spices and more than 30 per cent of the ingredients were extinct with a further 20 banned by World Health Organisation. And with the help from the innovation voucher, alternative ingredients were found.

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