The secondhand five-colour XL 105 with coater will be installed at the company's base in Harrow, north London, next month. It cost less than £700,000 and will replace a six-colour Heidelberg CD 102.

Alongside the magazine work, the 19-staff company makes its £2.2m turnover from business cards and perfect-bound brochures for clients including publishers, pharmaceutical producers and carton companies.

Ken Varnham, joint managing director with Lynn Tosh, said he wanted to bump up company turnover to the £3m mark within 12 months.

“All our presses are Heidelbergs: it's a tried and tested machine supplier and we have confidence in the product,” he said.

The kit, bought from Itec, runs at 18,000sph and was chosen for its productivity, upgrading technology, makeready times and speed, said Varnham.

“It will deliver an appreciable increase in running speed on our current kit. We do business-to-business magazines and want to increase this side of our work.

“The internet has had an effect but there are still a lot of B2B and consumer magazines out there and people still like to pick up and hold print.

“We tell our sales staff that kind of work is still out there, you have to go out and increase your slice. The press will take out a few of the barriers they come up against on price.

“A lot of companies put in XL 75s and we come up against them quite a lot of the time, which can be a real struggle. But this latest machine will help us compete pricewise and on productivity.”

Imega Print also runs a five-colour Heidelberg CD 102, a two-colour GTO for business cards and a Kodak Sonora XP CTP system. It prints on materials ranging from 400-micorn board to 90gsm coated silk substrates.