All 22 staff at James Stewart were made redundant on 10 October, following the appointment of Philip Watkins, partner at FRP Advisory, which has now confirmed the sale of the business.

Graphite Creative Print has acquired all of the assets and machinery of the failed printer, reuniting former production director Simon Timms with the business he left following its sale in June 2010.

In addition to litho and digital printing, James Stewart offered a host of in-house finishing services, including embossing, foiling, die stamping, flittering, thermography, die cutting, folding, collating, stitching and trimming.

Timms told Greetings Today that he was "responsible for the introduction of the wide range of in-house finishing processes that JS became highly regarded for".

He added: "Graphite will have all of the facilities that were at JS and over the coming months will also have new and exciting offerings that have not previously been seen in the greetings industry.

"Graphite aims squarely at providing design-led greetings card publishers with a print company that completely understands what is required."

James Stewart & Co (Printers) was sold in June 2010 to former Oxford University Press director of printing services George Thomas and group supply chain director Dave Fry.

The pair set up a holding company, Fry Thomas Holdings, with the stated aim of building a "to build a group of businesses to £50m in five years"; however, just two years later they filed a notice of intent to appoint administrators at James Stewart.