February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The Irish Echo Index Top 30, due to be launched at a Wall Street luncheon on Thursday, spotlights 30 publicly-traded companies operating in Northern Ireland and promotes the North as an ideal investment location.
Among the American companies with Northern Ireland operations on the Index are Caterpillar – parent company of FG Wilson – Visteon, Openwave, Aon, Tyco International and Citigroup.
Guests of honor at the launch event include Duncan Niederauer, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, which bought Belfast software company Wombat last December, and Paul Verbeten, Chairman of Perfecseal, a Derry packaging company which has just completed an 18-acre plant development.
The Index Top 30 also includes 15 top Irish companies, including the North’s three publicly traded companies: UTV, First Derivatives and Andor Technology.
The Irish Echo, Irish America’s biggest-selling and longest continuously published newspaper, has been reporting on, and pressing for, increased U.S. investment in the North for years but in particular since the advent of power sharing government in Belfast a year ago.
The paper’s readership across the United States has long been at the forefront of efforts to bring about positive change in Northern Ireland and the Echo Index is a reflection of this.
“We see this initiative on Wall Street and the recently unveiled investment plans by New York City Comptroller William Thompson as two sides of the same coin,” said Irish Echo editor Ray O’Hanlon.
“American companies are familiar with the success of the Celtic Tiger economy; now we want to introduce them to the business potential of Northern Ireland and the opportunity to create jobs and prosperity with fair investment.
This is particularly important in the days running up to the investment conference in Belfast,” O’Hanlon said.
Among the sponsors of the high-powered business event are KPMG, Invest NI and Tourism Ireland.