The Blackburn-based company has added a sixth Heidelberg ST300 stitching line and a seventh MBO folder and Palamides bander from used equipment dealer Grafitec this month.

According to the PrintWeek SME of the Year, the secondhand Heidelberg was bought to replace a slower machine, but managing director David Nestor said that it had ended up being an addition rather than a replacement.

"We bought the Heidelberg as the next stage of our upgrading process," he said. "But by the time we had finalised a deal it ended up coming in as an additional machine.

"We have had strong demand from our customers of late and we thought we may as well just run the machine alongside the others. We will probably stick with six stitching lines, so we may replace the older machine eventually next year."

Nestor said that the ST300 was capable of running at 12,000 books per hour, while its predecessor had a top speed of 8,000.

He added the company would continue to invest in improving its equipment as long as business continued to boom, although he did not intend to make the site any bigger than it already was.

He said: "The back end of this year has been incredibly strong. We are returning close to where we were in 2008 before the financial crisis. There has been a slight recovery in the financial sector and that has certainly helped business."