Dublin freight firm Irish Express Cargo has been acquired by US electronics group Flextronics International for an undisclosed sum.

The principal beneficiaries of last Thursday's deal, believed to be worth about £60 million (€76.2 million), are Express Cargo's founder Mr Finn O'Sullivan and his wife Anne, who held 50 per cent of its stock.

Mr O'Sullivan, who established the company in 1972, is staying with Express Cargo as managing director.

Other beneficiaries of the deal include Cairn Holdings, an investment company which held 20 per cent of Express Cargo, and a number of its senior managers, among them Mr Gerard Tyrell, a director and 17 per cent shareholder.

Discussions on the deal continued for three months, a spokesman said.

He indicated that the firm had received other approaches before this, but declined to comment on the deal's value.

The general manager at Flextronics' Cork operation, Mr John O'Sullivan, declined yesterday to comment on the deal.

No spokesperson was available at its San Jose headquarters because yesterday was a public holiday in the US.

Flextronics, registered in Singapore, has design, engineering and manufacturing operations in 25 states in four continents.

One of the largest contract manufacturing firms, it has entered partnerships with Microsoft and Siemens.

It reported revenues of $2.29 billion (€2.54 billion) in the three months to the end of June, 139 per cent more than the same period in 1999.

Its operating profits in the quarter were $97.1 million.

The company has a market capitalisation of about $16.64 billion on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.

It had no logistics division before its latest acquisition.

Irish Express Cargo had revenues last year of £170 million, and is one of the largest supply chain management firms in Europe.

Its latest filing at the Companies Offices shows revenue of £123.9 million in 1998, up from £78.59 million a year earlier.

Its pre-tax profit in 1998 was £1.44 million.

The firm's Irish client base includes Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM, ATI, Nortel, Apple, Gateway, 3Com, Stratus, Coca-Cola, and Analog Devices.

Express Cargo employs more than 2,600 at operations in the Republic, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US.

In addition to its core freight and logistics activities, it also operates call centres.

Crucial to this has been its ability to supply key information to clients on the flow of goods from manufacturing to supply and consumption stages.