It sold its Colour Cards business to US-based Colwell Industries for 11.5m and has merged Waddington Labels into its Personalised Products division.

Colour Cards produces paint chips for home decoration, cosmetics and cars in France and Germany.

The deal with Colwell included Mccorquodale Ltd in Canada, and Mccorquodale Inc, in the US.

The 11.5m total, less than the 12.4m net assets of the business, included Colwell paying 4.6m, a 4m short-term loan from Communisis and a deferred payment of 2.9m.

The deferred 2.9m will be paid in instalments until 2007.

Communisis said the company had tried to get the best price for the business, but this had still fallen short of its asset value.

In the year to 31 December 2003 the businesses sold made a profit of 1.7m.

The proceeds of the sale will be used to finance Communisis' core businesses.

Waddington Label's integration with Personalised Products would provide the business with, "a lot more flexibility", according to the firm.

A spokeswoman said there had been an increase in demand for sheet fed work, which the business can produce along with labels. There will be no redundancies due to the merger.