A LEADING St Annes employer has been bought out by its management team.

Energy specialist Inenco says the deal will help to secure more than 140 jobs at the St Andrews Road North business.

The buyout was lead by managing director, Nigel Withey along with Peter Maguire, Chris Lee, Geoff Smith and Michael Abbott.

Inenco, the UK's leading energy analyst with a turnover of £14 million annually, now hopes to expand in Europe and North America.

"Inenco had remained under private ownership until 1993 when an institutionally backed buy-out by its executive directors took place," said Mr Withey: "In 1999 the company was then bought by the current owners as part of a strategic diversification and expansion programme, since then Inenco has continued to operate as an autonomous subsidiary, with its own executive board.

"I would like to thank all the team at Inenco for their support throughout this process. The deal will enable the company to realise its full potential and to better serve its customers through innovative, new services and international growth.

"With steeply rising energy prices and increasing environmental legislation, Inenco is ideally positioned to reduce this burden on its customers' profits.

"We are also well place to capitalise on the opening up of the European energy market and, ultimately, the global marketplace and our increased expansion internationally will enable us to fully capitalise on the benefits that these will bring to our customer base."

Inenco works with a variety of leading UK firms, including Marks and Spencer, Sainsburys and JD Wetherspoon and handles the purchase of £175m of energy each year.