THE American company Step 2 is investing almost £2 million in a plant in Coleraine, Co Derry, to manufacture children's plastic products for the European market.
The company, based in Streetsboro, Ohio, is leasing a 23,000-square-foot plant for an operation which is expected to create more than 50 jobs over the next three years, and which is backed by a grant of £600,000 sterling from the IDB.
Step 2 will initially employ 32 full-time employees. The company was set up in 1991 by its president, Mr Tom Murdough junior, founder and former president of the Little Tikes Company. Mr Murdough started Step 2 with just five employees.
It now employs more than 1,000 people at manufacturing plants in Streetsboro, Twinsburg, and Perrysville in north-eastern Ohio, and annual turnover is expected to top $100 million this year. The plant at Coleraine will be its first international facility, occupying 2,200 sq metres located in the former A.V.X. facility in the Loughanhill Industrial Estate.
Plant manager Walter Scott said Step2 had decided to open a factory in Northern Ireland in order to service its existing UK customers more efficiently, and to develop other markets throughout Europe.
Mr Scott, who managed the Little Tikes Company's Canadian plant for 12 years, said the company had looked at a number of potential locations in the UK and Ireland.
He said Northern Ireland's first-class road system had also been a factor.
