The business has been bought by William Pollard & Company of Exeter, a long-established family firm that was established in 1781.
The firm trades as Pollards and is still owned by members of the Pollard family.
Buckingham-based BCQ filed a Notice of Intention to Appoint Administrators earlier this month while a rescue deal was sought.
Today, (15 August), BCQ managing director Chris Knowles told Printweek: “Following an impossibly difficult few weeks, we are pleased to confirm that BCQ Group has been acquired by William Pollard and Company.
“Pollards have a heritage that goes back for over 240 years and are perfectly aligned to help drive the vision and future aspirations of the now enlarged group of creative service companies.”
The terms of the deal had not been disclosed at the time of writing.
Knowles confirmed BCQ had been sold via a pre-pack, and added: “We did everything possible to progress a solvent sale.”
Pollards is about half the size of BCQ in terms of turnover. Its holding company posted sales of £4.85m in the year to 31 March 2022, and made an operating profit of £586,297. It had 54 employees.
The firm’s assets include investment property and freehold land and buildings valued at nearly £5m.
A new company, Bidco 123 Ltd, was set up on 10 August. Its directors are Pollards managing director Dave Mace and operations director John Drew.
Pollards offers a range of similar services to BCQ including litho, digital and wide-format printing, mailing, and storage and distribution. It also supplies branded merchandise and has a client web-to-print and asset management platform called Brandhub360.
BCQ Group filed sales of £10.2m in the year to 31 March 2022, and reduced its operating losses from £735,833 to £282,223. It employed around 113 staff at the time.
The group has freehold property on its books valued at £2.95m.
Pollards had not commented at the time of writing.
The business is not connected to midlands-based Pusterla Pollards, which was acquired by Italian-headquartered Pusterla 1880 in 2021.
