765 jobs created at LogicaCMG in Bridgend

Logica CMG said that the investment in Bridgend will take the workforce above 1,000 over the next three years.

The Anglo-Dutch firm provides financial and IT management services for different companies.

Welsh Economic Development Minister Andrew Davies said they were just the sort of well-paid jobs Wales needed.

Increasingly companies look at the quality of the workforce and we have a workforce which is second to none Economic minister Andrew Davies

Mr Davies, who made the announcement at the firm's base at Bridgend Science Park, described it as "fantastic news".

He confirmed that the company had been given a "substantial" grant to develop in Bridgend.

But Mr Davies said the Welsh Assembly Government never revealed the details of such grants unless the company wanted to do so.

He denied that the money was the sole incentive for the business.

Mr Davies said: "Increasingly companies look at the quality of the workforce and we have a workforce which is second to none."

The new posts would benefit south Wales as a whole, said Mr Davies, as people would travel along to the M4 to the Bridgend site to work there.

Well-paid

Jim McKenna, Logica CMG's UK chief executive, said: "It will allow us to provide a greater service for customers - there is a greater demand for our outsourcing services."

"The type of work we do is changing over time, we're increasingly involved with mortgage applications, health and patients' records, that's what we can bring to this area."

LogicaCMG chief executive Jim McKenna announces expansion

Existing clients include T-Mobile, Britannia Airways, Dwr Cymru Welsh Water and British Waterways.

The company will recruit staff ranging from administrators to managers, starting with 350 jobs and then another 415 workers in a second phase.

Services range from personnel, accounts and pay-roll management, to help-desk and IT work.

Jeff Jones, leader of Bridgend Council, said he was sure it would be the start of major investment by the company in Wales.

Mr Jones said it would be "very good news indeed for Bridgend and indeed the Welsh economy."

He said that these were the sort of well-paid hi-tech jobs that Wales needed, to help keep graduates in the country.

Logica CMG was formed in December 2002 through the merger of two companies. It has 20,000 employees in 34 countries, with more than 6,000 in the United Kingdom.

It has been in south Wales since 2001 and most of the current 350 staff are based at Bridgend Science Park, with another centre at St Mellons, Cardiff.