Ward Knowles went into administration with Paul Flint and Brian Green at insolvency practitioner KPMG on 28 July 2009. They made 59 of the 165 staff redundant across two sites, in Accrington and Manchester.

It was announced last Friday (31 July) that Paragon was in talks over a buyout of the  Accrington facility, which was completed Tuesday afternoon (4 August). At this stage it is unclear what will happen to the Manchester facility.

The Ward Knowles name will be continued. As part of the undisclosed deal Paragon will take on 70 of the £12m businesses' employees.

Iain Black, group sales and marketing director at Paragon Group, said: "Our goal is to ensure that business continues as usual at Ward Knowles. Customers are assured that both service and quality will remain high during what we hope to be a seamless transition.

"With a significant part of our business already supplying the trade, we are confident that with the acquisition of Ward Knowles we have an unrivalled trade offering and a true alternative for print managers and brokers in terms of scale, quality, and operational excellence."

According to Paragon, the acquisition will benefit clients through the creation of "greater efficiencies" and the consolidation of suppliers, manufacturing capabilities and service offerings.

The facility will join four other UK sites in the £106m UK business. Elsewhere the company has UK sites at Sunderland, Castleford, Bradford and Lutterworth.

Across Europe the 160m-euro company employs 1,100 staff.

Tony Scott, sales director at Ward Knowles, said: "We are delighted to be joining the Paragon Group, without Paragon’s involvement all jobs at Ward Knowles would have been lost. Paragon is a great fit with Ward Knowles; complementing our existing trade relationships to ensure the long-term success of our business."