Three major contracts to supply chain stores with laptops and personal computers have ensured that a York firm is nearly £3 million better off, it was announced today.

IPC Archtec UK Ltd of Chessingham Park, Dunnington will supply 3,300 PCs for 71 Staples office equipment stores nationally.

And it has won a £100,000 trial order for laptops bound for ten key outlets of wholesalers Macro, which has also included the machines in its business-to-business mail order brochure.

More orders for laptops have come in from Doncaster-based electrical retailers Miller Brothers, a source which is expected to realise at least £250,000 over the next year.

It is another major growth spurt for the company which began by supplying components like microchips and hard drives and is now rapidly expanding both its PC supply and its supply of laptops which it produces in York. Recruiting has begun for another three to be added to the 13 on the payroll.

It also means yet another triumph for former commodity trader Mike Lockwood, the managing director, who helped to start the business with £3,333 in 1998 and steered it to gross profits of £301,000 in his first year, £467,000 in year two and is now headed for £500,000 this year.

Mr Lockwood this week gleaned a small personal fortune by selling his stake in the business to German-based ITC Archtec for the equivalent of about £500,000, of which £145,000 was in cash and the balance in shares which he intends to maintain. He has separately negotiated to continue as managing director with a ten per cent share in profits.

The firm is based in the three-storey IPC House, with separate technical support and production departments - a far cry from his lone office at the Raylor Centre in York which he set up in May, 1998.

One of the suppliers for his previous firm, a similar computer supply organisation in Burnley was Archtec of Germany. Aware that it was seeking a British base, he and his wife, Jenny, who hails from York, offered to set it up for them by taking a third share in the £10,000 it cost to establish the fledgling operation.

Two German investors funded the balance but it was always understood that once Archtec floated on the German stock exchange it would buy out his stake.

The business rapidly outgrew the Raylor Centre as computer component supplies generated £11.9 million turnover in the first year. By last year turnover was £19.1 million as emphasis began to switch to laptop and then PC supply.

He said: "I came to York with nearly nothing and seemed to have made a success of things largely because I'm more of a dilettante rather than an expert, who understands the importance of having an overview. It is quite clear that the future is now to expand the PC and notebook business."