The complexity of the contracts involved is said to be behind the delay to the original schedule, but chief executive James Elliot said a new schedule was firmly on track. The sheer enormity of the project is such that Im led to believe its the first of its kind in UK print, he said.

Elliot also dismissed a critical article in South African magazine Finance Week as scurrilous.

Finance Week alleged that Elliot defaulted last year on the payment of sureties in South Africa in relation to the liquidation of Adcolour in 1996.