"We see it as a great opportunity and are ready to invest a lot of money," said Chris Pechock, partner at Matlin Patterson, which acquired Goss in 2002.

"We're not penny-wise pound fools we are looking at this in terms of where this new company needs to be in three, four and five years' time," he continued.

"We are very excited the combined business will probably be the number one in web in the world, and the post-press business looks pretty good too."

Goss and Heidelberg hope to complete the deal by the end of this month.

Goss has received anti-trust approval for the takeover in the US but has to wait for the contract to be signed before applying for the European equivalent.

Although Goss will be paying little or nothing for a business that will also come to it free of debt, it will have to fund the cost of restructuring it.

Pechock added: "Restructuring is not cheap but the payback is there. At Goss we have reduced our capacity and now have pretty much the lowest breakeven point in the industry.

"Heidelberg was slow to do that, so there are opportunities for basic restructuring that will lower the Heidelberg breakeven.

"A lot of issues go into which plants to downsize. We will have two plants in France so clearly that's an issue," he added.

Story by Jo Francis