Opus recruitment ahead of schedule
OPUS Fund Services, the international financial services company that set up a base in Enniscorthy earlier this year, has said its recruitment projections are ahead of schedule.
The company’s COO, Mark Atkinson, met with this newspaper last week and he confirmed that by year end the company will be employing 10 full-time personnel with more people due to be recruited in the New Year.
‘The initial projection was five people by year end but that will be 10 so we are ahead of projections,’ he said.
The company is currently located in temporary offices in Merrythought House, Templeshannon, but will be moving into the newly refurbished courthouse building once the local authority moves back into its traditional base in Market Square.
That’s expected to happen by August next year and Mr Atkinson said that by then he hopes his company will have between 20 and 25 employees.
All of the people employed in the company at present are from or based in county Wexford.
‘We’re lucky because there are a lot of highly talented and educated people in Wexford and it’s our plan to ensure that we employ local people here and that we retain them,’ he said.
He highlighted the benefits of living in a town and district like Enniscorthy as being a major plus for employees.
The long term vision of the company is to move onto a permanent site in the Technology Park when it’s completed.
The business currently works predominantly with American companies but in April it was granted authority by the Central Bank to provide services to Irish and European funds and it’s through that the company expects to grow extensively over the next four to five years.
At the end of that period Mr Atkinson is confident the workforce in Enniscorthy will be around 100 people and the vision is that most if not all of them will be local people.
‘We will look at the Technology Park when it’s completed rather than wait until we have reached capacity in the courthouse,’ he said.
However, Mr Atkinson said that without the courthouse becoming available the company wouldn’t have been able to set up in Enniscorthy.
‘We have surpassed out expectations so far and we are concentrating on getting local people,’ he said.
Outlining the benefits of working in Enniscorthy he said people have access to a good life work balance and good quality of life here.
‘We will have 25 people working for us by the end of next year and the target is to have 100 within five years,’ said Mr Atkinson.