The newly formed printer, run by entrepreneurs David Searle and Stephen Hardy, bought the two businesses out of administration from MPI last week and has set out to consolidate the industry.

However, in an interview with PrintWeek, Hardy admitted that one of his first challenges was to restore the battered reputation of the companies with suppliers – many of which have refused to deal with the company following massive losses with MPI.

Suppliers have voiced their anger to PrintWeek that the "healthy and profitable" company was placed into administration and bought in an apparent pre-pack. A spokesman for paper merchant Antalis said the company would not supply HS Printers.

Hardy said: "I understand suppliers' positions. They have lost a lot of money and are naturally cautious and it is up to us to prove that we will run the business well and profitably."

A spokeswoman for Robert Horne, an operating company under Paperlinx, said it was "happy to trade with any viable company".

PrintWeek has learned that a deal to buy the shares of MPI without putting the business into administration was initially mooted but, according to Hardy, as events unravelled, it became clear that as the liabilities of the companies were mounting, the net worth of the business was "approaching the negative".

Administrator Paul Clarke of Menzies Corporate Restructuring said that there were "seven or eight" interested parties in the businesses adding that business was "all but suspended" as it ran out of supplies following the actions of what Mike Dolan, former owner of the companies, called its "less committed suppliers".

Separately, Dolan has said that he is not planning a return to print in the near future but added that he still believed there were numerous opportunities in the industry and would not rule out a comeback "when the time was right".