Cats, which has made more than 12 acquisitions over the past 10 years, was previously a purely B2B printer, producing over 30m mono and 3m colour prints each month.

Greg Smith, managing director at Cats Group, said: "We have been looking for added-value products and services, which allow us to [target] individual, retail customers."

Smith added that, while the company would target some of Moonpig’s dominant share in the card market, it was eager to use the acquisition to introduce a wider range of personalised products to consumers.

Smith declined to reveal what the new products were, but claimed that some would be ready for a pre-Christmas launch via an "expanded and diversified new YooDoo website".

He said: "Yoodoo has a good market share of the personalised greetings cards market, around 20%-25%, but we want to diversify and already have a dozen products to launch in the near future.

"We wanted good quality products that we could take to market. We have a solid offering serving the trade, but this is an opportunity and a vehicle to move outside of that."

Cats Group also declined to comment on how the deal, which was completed last Friday (12 November) would affect existing staff at six-year-old Yoodoo, with whom it is currently in TUPE negotiations, or the company’s directors.

According to Companies House, Michael Gordon, Robert Leslie and Harold Wright are chairman, managing director and business development director of Yoodoo respectively.

Earlier this year, Cats Group said it was targeting a £12m turnover by the end of its financial year, but Smith said that the figure, excluding the YooDoo acquisition, would be nearer to £13m.

"In this environment, to succeed you sometimes have to help yourself. It’s a tough climate, but we are doing well and this acquisition will enable us to grow further," added Smith.