A DOUBLE success is being celebrated in Basingstoke after a trailblazing businessman and a thriving firm scooped major awards.

Rafi Razzak, founder and managing director of Chineham company Centerprise International, has been named as Entrepreneur of the Year in the CBI Growing business awards.

And staff at AuDeo - the town-based teleconferencing firm - are also celebrating after it won the Most Promising Young Company award.

The delighted winners were presented with their awards in London on Thursday at a ceremony attended by American computer tycoon Bill Gates and Trade and Industry Minister Patricia Hewitt.

Rafi Razzak, an engineering graduate, was with IBM for nine years before forming Centerprise in 1983.

The Chineham-based firm is now one of the three largest UK assemblers of personal computers - building over 60,000 systems at its Basingstoke plant in the current year.

Customers range from the Ministry of Defence to Dixon, Unipart and the National Grid. Turnover has grown rapidly and this year topped £150 million.

In its citation accompanying the award, the CBI says: "The award is for an individual whose contribution to their company, community and the wider economy is both extraordinary and measurable.

"Centerprise was formed to meet growing demand for custom-built personal computers.

"The company was founded on a set of core values that Rafi Razzak believes are the reason behind the success of what is now a leading British manufacturer - to make a high quality product, to build it tailored to the exact needs of the customer and to manufacture it in Britain."

Although it was only set up four years ago, AuDeo has grown so fast that it has around 20 per cent of the UK's video conferencing business.

The judges - a panel of top businessmen - said of AuDeo: "This company scores on all counts. It has shown excellent growth, has a strong product base and has more than doubled its turnover in two years."

In the citation, it says: "Growth is high on the agenda for AuDeo with projection for 2001 of a 50 per cent increase in sales and a newly-launched division that sells audio conference products direct to users.

"The company is also investing heavily in demonstration facilities with a state-of-the-art video conferencing boardroom currently under development."