Cardiff-based ACT bought the inkjet machine, one of the largest digital printers on the market, from Litho Supplies Inkjet Display & Print, a specialist division of Litho Supplies.

ACT director Ian Davies said the company needed to upgrade its existing 3.2m large-format inkjet printer.

The firm works for a host of big names including Marks & Spencer, BMW, Barclays, Rolls-Royce and the Welsh Development Agency.

Davies said: “The time had come to upgrade… to gain more productivity and production flexibility, as well as to move to environmentally friendly UV-curable inks.”

The Spühl Virtu RS35 printer is manufactured in Switzerland and can print on rigid substrates up to 95mm thick in up to six colours.

Meanwhile, Litho Supplies has indicated in a trading update that it made a “modest recovery” towards the end of the first quarter, following a slow start to the year. It added that Litho Supplies had taken a “satisfactory level of orders” at Northprint and Sign UK.