TVC, which advises a number of funds including the £7.5m TV1 fund, confirmed yesterday that it had signed a deal to purchase a majority shareholding in the Northampton-based print manager.

The deal followed months of speculation regarding the future of TPF Group, which has struggled since the loss of its single-source print management contract with Sky in July 2008.

Rumours circulating before Christmas suggested that the most likely outcome was an MBO of the print management business, with the manufacturing arm set to remain under its existing ownership.

However, TVC founder Bruce Gordon told PrintWeek that his immediate plans did not include a separation of the BPO and manufacturing sides of the TPF Group.

He said: "The business trades as two division currently – the print division and the print management division – and will continue to do so. Both of those have separate growth strategies, which they are pursuing.

"In terms of any plans to separate them, we have no plans at the moment to do anything of that nature – the business will continue to operate as it does now with two divisions."

TVC's decision to invest in TPF Group marks a somewhat suprising return of venture capital money to the print management sector, which has suffered almost as much as the print sector over the past year.

Gordon argued that there was a great deal of growth potential for TPF's print management business, although he admitted that the print manufacturing business would not have aroused venture capital interest on its own.

"We've been hugely impressed with the management team of the BPO business and believe that they have a really good opportunity to grow that business significantly, and that's the attraction," he said.

TPF Group founder and chief executive Steve Brundle, who has retained a minority stake in the business, added: "This represents an exciting development for our business, as we can now build upon our fantastic success to date and realise the benefits from an excellent pipeline of new business opportunities across our print management and marketing services divisions."

The group said that the takeover by TVC had followed a period of review in which the management team "identified a need to focus the business around its growth strategies and sought additional funding to support this".