A TECHNOLOGY firm has revealed £5.5m expansion plans.

Filtronic aims to strengthen its market standing by leaving the London Stock Exchange’s main market and switching to the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

The company says the move will allow it to make 90 million shares available at 5p each, potentially raising £4.5m.

It also plans to offer a further 20 million shares to existing eligible investors, which it says will deliver another £1m.

The changes are subject to shareholder approval, and could be in place by November.

The business runs its broadband division at NetPark, in Sedgefield, County Durham, and says the placing will fund new products, improve sales and offer scope to attract investors.

Its broadband operation has a workforce of about 65 and develops equipment to help people get more out of mobile phones, such as e-band transceivers, which increase the amount of data able to be pushed around networks.

In a statement, Rob Smith, chief executive, said: “The net proceeds of the placing will be used to finance the group’s working capital requirements as it moves from new product introduction to volume production.

“In particular, it will be used to ramp up advanced integrated antenna products and e-band transceiver products, while improving marketing.

“The AIM is an appropriate market for a company of Filtronic’s size, and is one which should help attract new investors.”

Earlier this month, Mr Smith told The Northern Echo the rising clamour to watch videos on mobile phones was giving the organisation real impetus.

He said the demand, which includes streaming YouTube funnies and sporting events, was putting Filtronic at the head of global markets, with an order from a major operator for its transceivers evidence of such success.

He said: “It is a very challenging market, and the business has taken a number of knocks over the years.

“But the key to our growth is some fantastic technology and brilliant engineers.

“Everyone has 4G phones and streams videos, and we are world-leading and have a proposition out of Sedgefield that no-one else has.

“A lot of people are saying they can do the e-bands, but it’s not at the kind of data rates we are talking about.

“We are a company that has potential to go a long way.”

Last year, The Northern Echo exclusively revealed Filtronic was staying in the North-East after it left the former RFMD microelectronics plant in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, when the US firm moved out of the region.