A husband-and-wife team who set up a computer equipment supply operation in their front room are to become millionaires.

The Shannon-based company, Amtek MMI, of which Mr Martin O'Brien and his wife, Anne, are the sole shareholders, has been taken over by a German telecommunications company, Teles AG. As part of the deal, the couple is receiving 10,000 shares in Teles, which at their current market value are worth £1.2 million.

Teles is to establish an Irish facility at Amtek's premises at Shannon Airport to manufacture telecommunications switches. The new facility could employ up to 300 people, although negotiations on exact employment levels are still taking place. Mr and Mrs O'Brien are being retained by Teles as managers for the Shannon operation.

As a subsidiary of Teles, Amtek will assume responsibility for the sales of the switches in "the English-speaking world", said a statement.

Mr O'Brien told The Irish Times that the deal with Teles had been done in one week. "They seemed to have done a lot of homework on us, came in and looked at the books, and the deal was done soon after," he said. "We started this company from my front room and have been lucky since then. This should mean even more exciting times ahead," he added.

The company, which was launched in 1989, supplies computer parts to firms like Dell, Compaq, Gateway, Hewlett Packard and AST. It also sells PCs, provides logistic support and undertakes training for IT staff.

According to the last set of accounts lodged in the companies office, covering 1996, it had pre-tax profits of £153,111.

Teles, based in Berlin, is quoted on the new companies stock market in Frankfurt and is one of Germany's fast-growing telecommunications companies. It has completed five acquisitions in the last two years.

It will issue the 10,000 shares to Mr and Mrs O'Brien without offering subscription rights to current shareholders.

It said the acquisition was "already foreseen" as part of its business development plan.

Its chief executive, Professor Sigram Schindler, said Teles expects its turnover to increase by 80 per cent by the end of the year, from 107 million deutschmarks (£43 million) to DM195 million (£78 million).

Apart from producing telecoms switches, Teles also provides ISDN technology. Some of its previous growth predictions were not sustained after a failure to expand into the US market. It said the company's main reasons for setting up in the Republic were "the low costs of labour, the availability of trained IT professionals and attractive tax regulations".

Mr O'Brien said the new operation would require a "significant number of employees", but he declined to specify a figure.