Under the agreement former employees will see their annual holiday entitlement reduced from 28 days to 26, in line with existing MPG staff, while salaries and pension entitlements will remain the same. CUP management has agreed to honour a profit related bonus earned by employees to date.

Of the 69 positions held at Cambridge Printing Services, CUP’s printing arm, around 55 are secure and will transfer to MPG under TUPE regulations. The remaining 14 staff, from administrative and pre-press roles, could seek redundancy although MPG said it would look to redeploy them within the company.

MPG will take over a new factory in the Barhill area of Cambridge from March 2013 and will transfer a single KBA Rapida 105 10-colour press to the site from CUP. It is also understood that MPG will deploy high-speed inkjet at the site providing all staff with training in the technology as it is not currently employed at CUP.

In the coming weeks MPG is expected to announce further developments including details of a "multi-million pound" investment programme.

Chief executive Tony Chard said the future was very exciting: "The agreement with CUP puts MPG at the top of the league table in the academic book and journal market. We’ll be number one by both volume and profitability by the time we have completed our programme of changes."

"Our top ten customers are global publishers and this agreement allows us to integrate with them more along with a workforce that are world-renowned for fantastic quality. It is a powerful combination."

CUP director of corporate affairs Peter Davison said overall the deal was the best outcome they could have hoped for: "We are proud that although CUP has had question marks for the last two years over the future of our commitment to owning our own printing work, we have been able to come up with an arrangement that secures so many jobs and a continuing high standard of print services."

"The employees were very proud to work for the oldest printing company in the world so it is very sad because it is the end of an era but the investment from MPG will be a breath of fresh air and will secure valuable jobs into retirement."