AN IT company has refused to rule out creating new jobs after reaping the rewards of a North- East takeover deal.

Pulsant says investment in staff and technology will be critical to the evolution of its regional operations.

The business last year acquired Stockton-headquartered Onyx Group.

Bosses say the agreement has provided scope to extend work across a number of areas, such as cloud services, which help store large amounts of data.

However, Matt Lovell, chief technology officer, said officials are targeting further development, revealing Onyx has provided an opportunity to strengthen operations across the North and the Midlands.

He told The Northern Echo: “The acquisition has strengthened the portfolio and scale of the business by 50 per cent in the UK.

“Onyx extends Pulsant’s customer support and services into the markets of the North-East, Midlands and potentially the North-West, and complements its strong presence in the south and Scotland.

“One of the attractions of Onyx were the skills and capability of the staff, while it has also added market-leading professional services capacity.

“We have brought the accreditations of the two businesses together and it has given us a tremendous platform to deliver a rich range of services.

“We have already invested in the North-East bases and will continue to do that and invest in staff too.

“We are excited about the potential to expand and create new jobs in the North-East with future growth.”

Mr Lovell added Pulsant, whose operations include offices on Stockton’s Portrack Interchange Business Park and Team Valley Trading Estate’s Queensway South, which employ about 40 and ten staff respectively, was committed to its plans.

He said: “We have a programme to expand upon the capability that is already there.”

At the time of the acquisition, Pulsant chief executive Mark Howling said the deal represented an exciting new chapter.

He added: “Bringing in Onyx increases the scale of our business and the breadth of services we can offer, which is crucial as multi-cloud environments become more complex and more important.”

Onyx, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2014, previously signed a deal to manage IT for Edinburgh Airport and support furniture retailer DFS.