Both organisations will continue operating and reporting as separate entities, maintaining separate customer facing services.

However, the human resources, purchasing, marketing and finance departments will now be run under a single management team, headed up by joint managing directors Steve King and Malcolm Lane-Ley who will continue their respective responsibilities for The Paper Co and Howard Smith respectively.

The shared platform will be rolled out across seven divisions covering heat-set web offset, publishing, retail and sheet fed commercial print, forms, and narrow format reels.

A spokesperson for the company maintained "this strategy is based on efficiency and effectiveness, not cost-cutting.

"PaperlinX has already introduced the concept of shared services with their logistics division DeliveryCo. We think that some back-office integration makes logical sense for the group."

She said "there is going to be some operational overlap" and that "there may be some staff reductions".

But, from a customer point of view, she said that "the shared services don't effect the individual merchant's customer value proposition".

PaperlinX regional president Dave Allen said: "This organisation allows us to leverage the strength of Howard Smith and The Paper Co by combining internal structures to allow them to operate more effectively whilst continuing to offer their customers the service and product choice they need."

The organisational structure of Robert Horne, the third merchant within the PaperlinX Group, will continue unchanged under its current management team.