The deal, completed on Friday night (3 June), will allow CGI to expand its offering to include greater fulfilment and direct marketing capacity.

John Croft, CGI chief executive, said: "We are determined to spread the number of markets we cover out of pure financial print. This deal brings a diverse range of services under one roof."

Croft said that the two businesses were "complementary" and that client crossover between them was "tiny".

He said that the deal would give CGI a stonger presence in the business process outsourcing (BPO) market, which includes data handling, direct marketing and statement and invoice printing. "It also gives our clients a substantial mailing facility," he added.

3D Digital managing director David Moyse said: "Not only do we instantly increase our core digital offering to our existing customers, but we also now have a huge lithographic press capacity and access to CGI's client base worldwide."

Turnover for CGI Group, which operates in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney and Manila, will now be around 26m, up from 20m when Croft led a management buyout at the firm just over a year ago (PrintWeek, 4 March 2004).

Croft said: "It's a nice size to be, because we're big enough to be taken seriously but not so big that it takes a long time to make decisions, as it can in a huge Plc."

CGI now plans to move its only current digital press, an IBM InfoPrint 4100, into 3D Digital's premises during the summer. It will sit alongside the two Xerox iGen3s installed at the site, the latest fitted earlier this year.

3D Digital joint managing directors Moyse and David Whitnall will head up the digital division of CGI Group alongside CGI group operations director Barry Page, although Croft said that job titles have yet to be confirmed.

3DDigital will trade under the CGI name. Croft said he did not expect the deal to lead to any redundancies.

Story by Josh Brooks