Acorn is a B1 printer that runs Heidelberg litho and Ricoh wide-format machinery while also offering various digital printing services, while MPD has B2 litho capabilities and runs digital kit from Xerox.
Acorn managing director Simon Evers has successfully led the merger, which was agreed in early September and completed later in the month. The deal will see MPD director Victor Hopkinson becoming the second director of the new setup, along with Evers.
Acorn sales account manager Paul Shellard told Printweek: “MPD was looking at some sort of sell-off or merger, at least for the last 12-18 months, and we were one of the companies that they approached. Over the period of time, it made sense for Acorn to take [MPD] on.”
Acorn said that while it is seeking further litho investment, MPD’s B2 kit will sit alongside Acorn’s current Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106 B1 five-colour and coater. Ultimately, Acorn’s current site will become the company’s litho plant.
Plans are to eventually move all digital work, including B3, wide-format and label production, over to MPD’s existing site in Swindon to make that a dedicated digital plant. Shellard said the two companies' sites are a stone's throw away from each other.
MPD will retain its own identity for the time being and will be known as MPD – part of the Acorn Group. The business currently has 13 staff, all of whom will be coming over, while Acorn employs 57 staff across its various businesses.
Acorn’s first acquisition was APD (Another Perfect Delivery) in 2022, which became its in-house mailing facility with a Buhrs mailing line and also offers polywrapping along with hand fulfilment facilities.
Evers added a second acquisition at the beginning of this year with Advanced Printing Services (APS), a specialist printer that produces promotional garments via screen printing, dye-sublimination, and DTF printing – a recent investment area for the company.
On the wide-format side, APS also produces vinyl graphics and fitting services, plus engraving and signwriting for vehicle graphics.
With the addition of MPD to Acorn, the combined group’s current sales stand at £10m, with realistic milestones to drive sales towards £15m by the end of 2026.
MPD’s pre-merger sales were around £1.3m to £1.5m.
“We believe that with the new kit, we can drive that up quite easily without doing anything dramatic at the initial stage, because of the existing customer portfolio we can tap into,” said Shellard.
“We want to be modest about what we’re trying to achieve as this all comes to pass. But after that, then obviously we’re on an accelerating growth [path] – we have to be to justify what we're trying to do.”
He added: “Growing too quickly is a bad thing but with the amount of resource that we’ve got, and bearing in mind that the MPD guys can tap into our B1 tech as well, it opens up their portfolio.
“Across the group, when you read through the services that we now offer, we don't want just orders, we want accounts as well. We can talk to customers on an encompassing package, so we can have accounts rather than just orders – because when you’ve only got orders, that’s when we find that the market is a bit more fickle.”
Acorn, which serves customers including the book market, charities, and the tool industry, is also currently working with its internal print IT specialist, Cheryl Corbett, to create what it claims is an industry first; a unique end-to-end workflow system that will reduce the touchpoints within the business and ultimately reduce costs, with the focus to ensure the business remains efficient and competitive.
