NORTHERN Recruitment Group (NRG) said it would make the Tees Valley a major target for business in the coming year as it announced a doubling of profits.

NRG, which is based in Newcastle and has offices in Darlington, York and Middlesbrough, announced pre-tax profits of £3.1m, more than doubling last year's £1.4m profit.

Turnover increased to £22.4m, a rise of eight per cent.

NRG, which employs more than 100 people in the region, was founded by chief executive Lorna Moran in 1977.

It has several divisions dealing with specialist recruitment areas.

Its NRG City brand, which specialises in support staff, including personal assistants, receptionists, office managers and administrators, is expanding to the Tees Valley to meet growing demand.

Ms Moran said a location for a consolidated Tees Valley office had not been decided, but the Middlesbrough division would be kept on separately to recruit more blue-collar workers.

The move may lead to the Darlington office closing and its staff moving to a consolidated NRG City office on Teesside.

Ms Moran said: "We are going to open a new Tees Valley operation. We already have operations there, but we want to strengthen our relationship further with the whole Darlington and Tees Valley area because there is so much going on there.

"This is basically about expansion, not about shutting any offices, but consolidating them and expanding our operations.

"While we are looking at more investment up in Scotland, the North-East base is very important to us and we could be seeing more expansion across the region in the future."

The closure of the Samsung factory in Wynyard affected the business, but Ms Moran said new business had been secured with other customers which would help the company continue to grow.

NRG also announed yesterday that Leo Finn, the former chief executive of Northern Rock, was expected to become chairman at the company's annual meeting in October.