Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

HolyStone Enterprise is a £200 million publicly listed business in Taiwan, which has a major manufacturing facility in Tao Yuan County as well as R & D facilities in Japan and two further factories in mainland China.

The company’s new European headquarters will operate under the banner of HolyStone (Europe) Ltd and will initially offer sales and marketing support before it opens a test and analysis operation at the Norwich site in 2008.

New European head, John Plaskett, has also been assigned the task of identifying potential targets across the continent to comply with HolyStone’s stated expansion strategy of making two Asian or European acquisitions per year worth anything up to $100m.

“There are a couple of suitable targets in mind,” said Plaskett, “but at the moment HolyStone is concentrating on completing a Taiwanese acquisition.”

The move follows a similar roll-out in the US three years ago and brings HolyStone closer to one of its principal markets. The company will have eight staff by the end of the year and will build a larger local base as it grows.

Aiming to hit a turnover of $10 million within its first four years, Plaskett believes the firm will make $1m in the first year before some exponential growth kicks in and sales accelerate. Just one week in and HolyStone already has its first order.

“This is a very exciting business opportunity and we are delighted to be based in Norwich,” said Plaskett, who has over 30 years’ experience in the passive component industry, and was managing director of Norwich electronics manufacturer Syfer Technology until last year.

“The new company is responsible for developing the HolyStone brand name throughout the whole of Europe and Israel. Our primary focus will be on application specific ceramic components for markets including telecommunications, automotive and industrial.

“However we will also be able to offer a complete range of standard low-voltage commodity devices for general electronics requirements.

“With state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, we can offer high quality products, competitive pricing and local technical and commercial support. In addition, we can provide the logistic strengths and support expected of a global distributor.”