Northern Ireland electricity group Viridian has said it wants to expand its businesses in the Republic to encompass far more than electricity generation and supply.

The group, which is in talks to buy small telecoms company Stentor in the Republic, said it wanted to become involved in telecoms, regardless of whether that deal were concluded. It is also expanding its IT consultancy subsidiary in the Republic.

Viridian director of corporate affairs, Mr Peter Gavan, said the company was still doing due diligence on Stentor. It has made a conditional offer to Stentor's majority shareholder to buy the company with Energis, a joint venture partner involved in telecoms in the UK.

Mr Gavan said the company wanted to be involved in telecoms and several other businesses on an all-island basis. Viridian has secured planning permission to build a power station at Huntstown in Dublin, with CRH. He said it was expected that contracts to build it could be initiated within a year, but added that the regulatory process was somewhat slow.

Mr Gavan was speaking yesterday after Viridian reported operating profits of £89.5 million sterling (€149 million), for the year to end of March, compared with £86.6 million last year. The shares were down 1.07 per cent on the day.

Viridian chairman Mr Philip Rogerson said the results demonstrated the benefits to shareholders and customers of a restructuring and repositioning process which the company began two years ago.

The company said it had made good progress in its unregulated business. In its second year of operation Viridian Capital increased its operating profit from £7 million to £17.6 million.