The arm will be headed up by Access Plus director Colin Passmore, with Greig Scott moving into the role of sales director.

According to Passmore the publishing and catalogue sectors are not new areas for the company and it will draw on existing clients to establish the division. "We are not starting from zero and we have a good revenue base to move forward," he said. "The early signs are that we can develop this division very quickly."

Passmore added that since the TripleArc group won the contract with clothing chain Matalan, it has developed new relationships with suppliers in web offset and gravure. The Matalan deal was signed earlier this year and covers catalogue and direct mail in the UK (PrintWeek, 12 February).

"We are able to draw on our wide and varied European supplier base, plus TripleArc's unique propriety workflow technology," said Passmore. "We believe the formation of a dedicated publishing and catalogue division has immense potential to attract new clients who are looking for expertise in a specific area."

The division will have a production team of six and is currently operating at Access Plus' London office. Passmore added that specialist divisions could extend into other areas of print such as books and direct mail. But he said that the current focus will be on publishing and catalogues.

According to Scott, the division's objectives include working closely with corporate print managers and marketing agencies to ensure the efficient purchase of print.

Access Plus recently sealed a three-year agreement to print manage all of Virgin Mobile's point of sale material (PrintWeek, 25 November).

Story by Philip Chadwick