The new operation, which will trade as WebCo, will serve the heatset web offset market from service centres in Preston and Northampton and will be headed up by Robin Watkinson.

David Allen, Paperlinx UK regional president, said: "The team will provide a depth of experience in this market supported by a wide selection of product choices, and will be the chosen route to market for many major paper producers."

He said the combined operation is designed to "improve the group's operating efficiency, and from a customer perspective provide better focus, greater expertise and enhanced service".

Paperlinx has also made a series of changes to its management structure, including redundancies at Howard Smith Paper Group (HSPG) and PaperCo.

It follows an announcement in June in which Paperlinx said the two companies would consolidate a number of back-office operations to increase efficiency.

Paperlinx insists that the two merchants are not to be combined into a single business, and that they will keep two separate faces to market and continue to report as separate entities.

However, as previously announced, the human resources, purchasing, marketing and finance departments will be run under a single management team.

The shared platform has been rolled out across the two firms' divisions covering heatset web offset, publishing, retail and sheetfed commercial print, forms and narrow-format reels.

In addition, managing director for Paperlinx Ireland, Frank Mooney, has taken early retirement after seventeen years of service.

Mick Callaghan, who is currently managing director of Paperlinx's South African paper merchant, Finwood Papers, has moved to Dublin and taken over responsibility for operations in Ireland and South Africa.

He had been managing director at Finwood for eight years and joined the group from Antalis in 200l.