Marketing firm Advanced Alchemy is continuing its rapid expansion with a move to new headquarters in a converted church.

The step comes after the takeover of rival firm Intelligency for an undisclosed sum.

The firm set up in Grove, near Wantage, with a handful of employees in September 1999, and last year moved into offices at Newtec Place, off Magdalen Road, Oxford.

Now the 85-strong firm, which is continuing to recruit more staff, has expanded into St Edburg's Hall, in Priory Road, Bicester, while keeping its Oxford offices for special projects.

Group marketing manager Chris Price said: "We have recently won a big German contract. We will be looking to recruit a further 35 to 40 people and the plan is to employ about 200 by the end of the year." Mr Price said the acquisition of Intelligency would allow the company to expand its sales and marketing operations for its growing client base of IT, telecom and new media organisations. The firm has a presence on the west coast of the US, with a sales office in Los Angeles, and a presence on the east coast, with a new office in Virginia.

Its European sales function is based in Brussels, Belgium, and it also has offices in Geneva in Switzerland, Frankfurt in Germany, and Utrecht in Holland. This is in addition to operations in Cairo, Egypt, and a Pacific Rim office in New Zealand.

Paul Heise, senior vice-president of Advanced Alchemy Europe, said: "This acquisition is one of a sequence that is planned over the next few years. Our aggressive growth strategy will help to guarantee our dominant position in the industry."

Managing director Carlo TortoraBrayda said the acquisition had been a "fabulous opportunity". He added: "The Intelligency brand will not be maintained and the company will form a new UK cell for Advanced Alchemy.

"Similar cells are being developed concurrently in the USA and in New Zealand's new prime call-centre location.

"We anticipate that Intelligency customers will now benefit from the more strategic long-term partnerships offered by the Advanced Alchemy Group of companies."

The organisation has recently been nominated as "Best of British Export" in its particular field of business research and telemarketing by the National Export Archive.

From its beginnings in a Thames Business Advice Centre incubator base at Grove, near Wantage, the group has sustained an impressively high level of expansion, doubling in size every six months.

Due to the increasing levels of consistent growth, the firm, which employs industry-native language staff for all its services operations, plans to float on the Nasdaq stock exchange by 2005.