Brand is based in Manchester like its new acquisition and offers services including design, artwork, reprographics and colour management through to digital banners, 3D modelling and platemaking.
It said the addition of PPP means it can now offer a complete end-to-end service for its clients’ packaging and print needs, including the production of in-the-round flexo sleeves.
Brand co-founder and director Mark Bent told PrintWeek: “I used to work for Seven, which became Schawk in 2005, and myself and Justin [Jenkins, Brand managing director] left and set up Brand Imaging. We’d always worked with PPP over the years for overspill when we were Seven, so we knew the owners from there.
“This is something we’d spoken about for a number of years and it all came to a head in March, which is when we took PPP over. It fits really nicely with what we do.”
Bent added PPP “has an awful lot of technology that we don’t already have that it brings to the table”. Its portfolio includes machinery from Kodak and DuPont.
“The team at PPP have a long established reputation for exceptional quality, and this can only go to enhance the scale and operational efficiency that we are able to offer our clients,” he said.
“About a quarter of our business was platemaking, mainly working with corrugated and people like Roberts Mart on the shrink side of it. So while we had a small platemaking operation, 90% of what PPP do is flexo platemaking, which now takes us on to a whole new level.
“A lot of our relationships are with the brand owners and end-users; people like Avon Cosmetics, but their relationships are more with the print end. It all fits together really nicely.”
Bent said PPP will become the flexo arm of the wider Brand business and will be rebranded by the end of the year.
PPP’s 30 staff, including its directors, have all remained with the business, joining Brand’s existing 30 employees. Both companies were turning over close to £3m each and Bent said the combined turnover should hit £6m in the next 12 months.
While PPP remains at its current premises for now, some of its studio and client services staff have already moved into Brand’s premises and Bent said the company will look for a bigger building down the line to bring the two together.
