It's going to be intriguing to see what type of company St Ives acquires next.

There seems little doubt that it will buy something. Quite probably more than one thing. And after a period of considerable contraction, and despite sizeable buys such as SP (remember, ten years ago sales at the group were the best part of £500m, they're now £362m) I wonder what sort of business will be next to tick the right boxes for the PLC's new board.

Unlike so many of its peers St Ives actually has cash to splash - £55m-plus available through its banking facility, and likely enough a few million more once the asset-rich group sells its London headquarters building, which looks to be worth at least £5m.

I'm reminded of the last time St Ives had a significant chunk of money to invest, £100m no less, which went on what turned out to be an ill-fated expansion in the USA. While the group now has a fresh board CEO Patrick Martell has been there through thick and thin and will no doubt remember very well the travails that overseas expansion can bring.

So my 10p is on acquisitions of a more local nature. With another 10p that says web offset printing is unlikely to feature on the list of targets. It's noteworthy that since Martell took over the reins the firm hasn't bought a single conventional printing press - and despite that it still spent £12m on capex last year. Notable recent investments include the secure warehouse at Clays, and not one but two print-on-demand digital book printing lines for the plant. It's also investing heavily in Epicor's enterprise resource planning system for transparency of information across the group.

While discussing the year-end results it was good to hear Martell describe print as being 'at the centre of what we do, but not all that we do', and to learn of some successes in expanding its offering to beyond print services. Examples include Time Out magazine, where St Ives has gone from being (oh, hated description) 'just the printer' to managing Time Out's point-of-sale, fulfilment, distribution and direct marketing.

And its work with Sainsbury's to help the retailer print less, but print more effectively, is the sort of thing print businesses up and down the country need to become attuned to, if they aren't already.

Meanwhile, if you're running a non-commodity print business with double-digit margins, or a related data, media or marketing services type of company, don't be surprised if you get a call.