It is understood that the vandals struck last week when the Deeside, North Wales-based web offset printer stopped production overnight to install a new ink pumping system.

It is thought that the motivation for the vandalism was metal theft - the target being the copper piping inside the chiller unit. However, it is understood that significant collateral damage was caused in removing the piping.

Grapho Media sales and marketing director Vic Rollinson said: "We have suffered a serious case of vandalism; repairs are going to take a while but we hope to be up and running on the 3 January."

Grapho Media was founded with help from the Welsh Assembly in April 2010 by a group of former staff of the failed web offset printer Graphoprint, which went into administration in June 2007.