One of Italy's largest bank's, Credito Italiano, is to establish an equity research and asset management subsidiary at Dublin's International Financial Services Centre.

The new company will trade as Europlus and is expected to employ up to 80 people within the next 12 months.

Europlus will be the biggest equity research and asset management operation to locate at the IFSC, managing £30 billion of funds initially. Announcing the project yesterday, Europlus managing director, Mr Fabio Innocenzi, said the company will initially transfer 15 people from its Italian operations to run the Dublin business and will be seeking to hire a further 60 people in the coming months.

The company will be hiring both senior and junior specialists to join its equity research venture, and will be looking to employ a mix of Irish and European analysts to work at its Dublin base. Mr Innocenzi said it hopes to attract up to 20 Irish analysts working in major financial centres such as London and New York to Europlus. Another 20 analysts are likely to have worked in the various European financial centres. "Our goal is to create a multinational environment in Dublin," he said.

The analysts will provide equity analysis, research and stock selections from the 2,800 European public companies quoted on the various European stock markets to an international client base. Mr Innocenzi said the company expects to grow funds under management to £50 billion when it is fully established.

Europlus is the first international equity research operation to set up at the IFSC. It's parent Credito Italiano has been trading in Ireland from the international centre since 1996 and currently employs seven people. It is expanding it's activities to trade in international securities and structured finance.

Companies licensed to operate from the centre qualify to pay a special corporation tax rate of 10 per cent.

The bank has a subsidiary in Luxembourg - Ireland's main rival for financial services projects - and had also looked at other locations including London.

Credito Italiano was established in 1870 following the deregulation of the Italian banking sector. It was later privatised and became a public company in 1993. In 1995, it acquired the Credito Romagnolo bank, which later merged with Carimonte. The enlarged bank now trades as Rolo Banca and is one of the largest private banking groups in Italy.

The bank has a network of 1,750 branches throughout Italy. It has total assets of £71 billion, with customer deposits worth £42 billion and £40 billion in funds under management.