Alito Color was on the verge of buying the business of Keldia Printing as PrintWeek went to press after Thomas Potts was ruled out of the race.

Alito chairman Terry Brady hoped to finalise the deal for the Walthamstow commercial printer yesterday (25 October).

Keldias management team will join Alito, with Tony Foo (pictured) taking up a position on the board as group sales director.

The acquisition will be through Masterspeed, a subsidiary of Alito.

Joint administrator Andrew Andronikou of Hacker Young said he left Keldias management to choose between Alito and Thomas Potts, and they had opted for Alito as it would carry on production in Walthamstow in the short term.

"As long as they get good value for the business Im happy to go with them," he said. He expected a consideration of 200,000 to 300,000, he added.

Waddies also entered the bidding in the final stages but was turned away due to an overlap of customers.

Andronikou insisted the only creditors that had been unhappy during the administration were finance firms.

"The creditors list was a lot wider than just finance firms," he said. "I had large paper firms sitting there with 500,000 holes, so I was more sympathetic with them. We have to pay a balance to everybody."

Andronikou admitted that Keldia had been outsourcing some work to Alito, among others, before it went into administration in June because it was having problems with its eight- and five-colour presses.

And although Brady was quoted describing Andronikou as a "personal friend of mine" when he asked Hacker Young to assist him with Swindon Town FCs move for a CVA last year, Andronikou insisted that had "no bearing" on the Keldia deal. "Its at complete arms length," he said.

* In a separate transaction, Keldias finishing department has been sold to manager David Tharby.

Story by Gordon Carson