WORLD famous engineering firm Cleveland Bridge has revealed plans to float on the Stock Exchange.

The company, based in Darlington, County Durham, was the subject of a £8.4m management buy-out last June from Anglo-Norwegian group Kvaerner.

Its fortunes have since gone from strength to strength, with turnover expected to more than double next year.

Cleveland Bridge employs 650 staff across the UK - 450 of them at its Darlington Yarm Road site.

It intends to float in a bid to further boost its expansion plans, which would include establishing full-time offices in the United States and India. Other sites are also being examined.

Chief executive officer Tony Rae, who led the seven strong management buy-out team, said the flotation was planned for 2004-5.

He said: "This was always part of our planning but we have not given it a great deal of thought until now.

"We have got to a certain level now and we need to float in order to expand further and gain some major capital."

Cleveland Bridge strengthened its position in the worldwide bridge building market after Saudi Arabia's Al Rushaid Group acquired a 50 per cent stake in it.

A number of major bridge building contracts across the world have been secured in the past year by the management team.

Cleveland Bridge, which was on the verge of closure before its sale to the buy-out team, is now planning to reward its workers with the launch of a share option scheme on Friday.

"We are very proud and happy at how things have gone and we want to thank all our staff who have been very supportive of us," said Mr Rae.

"This is good news at a time when we are being told everything is gloomy for the manufacturing sector.