The profit drop came despite a boost in its Q1 print sales to $87.3m from $67.1m. Ennis earlier this year boosted its business documents business by acquiring the PrintXcel and Printegra brands and facilities from Cenveo. PrintXcel and Printegra account for about $80m in annual sales.

In its quarterly filing, the company said: "Our print margin decreased slightly from 28.8% to 27.9%, due to the lower margins of our recent acquisitions. Our apparel margin, which continues to be impacted by the higher yarn costs flowing through its cost of sales, decreased from 26.8% to 7.0% for the quarter."

In a statement accompanying the financials, Ennis Chairman/CEO and President Keith Walters noted: "Our print operations continued to deliver revenue and operational results as expected. The two new acquisitions (Printegra and PrintXcel) delivered sales of $19.6m for the quarter, which was slightly higher than expected, and operational profits of $800,000, which was less than expected due to some duplicate transitional costs and some operational inefficiency, which we expect to have corrected over the next several quarters."