The York-headquartered business has been linked with a bid for Leicester’s Artisan Press, the family-owned web offset printer.

York gained a £10m war chest through the recent deal with the Business Growth Fund, with the money earmarked for expansion at the £75m group.

At the time chief executive Chris Ingram said he was looking at "one or two acquisitions.’

Regarding this week’s Artisan speculation, Ingram told PrintWeek he had "no comment to make at this time."

Artisan directors Jonathan Sankey and Stephen Denbigh were also unavailable for comment.

Industry sources have suggested that a deal has been agreed between the two parties.

Artisan runs six web offset presses and has significant binding capacity with four large Muller Martini Corona lines.

The firm is known for its production of high-quality catalogues.

The £37.4m company made a loss of £395k last year.

York Mailing moved into the high-end catalogue space when it acquired Pindar’s Scarborough web offset business out of administration in 2011.

"From a customer’s perspective if you wanted a high-quality catalogue you would be likely to place it at Pindar or Artisan. York could establish a market-leading position in that quality niche," commented a source in the web offset sector.

York has also been linked with a potential bid for Lettershop Group in Leeds.