The Huntingdon firms Irish subsidiary, Astron Media Services, has secured a three-year, 7m (eur10m) deal to manage all the print requirements of the Electricity Supply Board (ESB).

It started working with the utility company last October (PrintWeek, 11 October 2002) after the ESBs previous supplier ran into difficulties but had to formally re-tender for the contract in compliance with the European Union Utilities Directive.

We were basically babysitting it on an emergency basis, said Mitchell.

The contract win should go some way towards helping Astron to hit Mitchells turnover target of 120m this year. Earlier this year it secured another Irish deal, with the Bank of Ireland (PrintWeek, 23 May).

The groups just-filed accounts for the year to 31 December 2002 show that sales fell by more than 1.5m to 100.5m, but operating profits before amortisation of goodwill almost doubled to 9.7m.

Astrons pre-tax loss also fell, from 6.2m to 2m. It was hit by interest payments of 7.5m, up from 7m in 2001, arising from long-term loans.

Mitchell said his ambition was still to grow Astron to a group with sales of 250m, adding: We have strong institutional support for future acquisitions.

2002 was about delivering the synergies from Astrons merger with Tactica Solutions in December 2000. Were more than delivering, added Mitchell. Just think that when we set up in 1996 it was a 13m business.

Astron Media Services, formerly known as Integrated Print Logistics Solutions, has already grown to a 30-staff operation from employing eight when it was bought by Astron last year (PrintWeek, 15 November 2002).

Astrons total workforce fell from an average of 625 in 2001 to 518 last year.