Its UK and French operations will be run separately and will trade under their old identities as Heights Design and Photomeca.

The deal was primarily financed by the Jones family. Although exact terms werent revealed, the deal has reduced Global Graphics debt by 27% taking it to 11.9m (19m). According to Jones, who is chairman and acting managing director of the new firm, it has started afresh with no long-term debts or liabilities.

Following last years restructuring and job cuts, which included the closure of the former Technigraph factory in Thetford, Jones doesnt foresee any further cutbacks at the firm, which employs 150 staff in the UK, mainly at its Halifax factory.

"Im not going on a massive spree of job cuts," said Jones. "I want to keep the workforce intact. The focus will be on better manufacturing methods, which should get products back to reasonable margins."

Although Jones doesnt see a dramatic rise in sales in the short term he is hoping to break even this year, and believes the market has finally bottomed out.

There are no plans to cut any of the products.

The deal to sell off the hardware division was first announced earlier this year and was expected to be completed by the end of last month (PrintWeek, 8 March).

The division saw sales fall 19% to 33.9m last year. It made a loss of 19.1m, which included a 12.8m restructuring charge.

Global Graphics chairman and chief executive Johan Volkaerts (pictured) called the sale a perfect solution for all parties.

"My role as chief executive is to create shareholder value," he said. "I couldnt do that with the hardware division. Software was starting to suffer. Everyone could see we were in deep trouble people were asking about the long-term survival of the firm, which could have hampered the software division."

Global Graphics has released preliminary first-quarter figures for the software division. Sales were up 14.5% compared to the fourth quarter of 2001 at 3.6m with EBITA of 872,000.

Story by Barney Cox