The firm’s former owner, Dutch holding company Mercurius Groep, sold the virtual data room side of the company, Imprima iRooms, to OTM Participation.

Imprima Financial Printing has been sold separately to its management team, with long-serving directors Tim Black (formerly sales director) and Chris Callow (formerly operations director) becoming joint managing directors of the standalone business.

Black said: “We have the same location and the same team, so it’s business as usual. The MBO gives us more focus, as this is our core business. It’s very exciting and a fresh challenge.”

Imprima Financial Print employs 50-60 staff and has projected turnover of circa £4m. It is based in the City of London.

The firm handles specialist typesetting for financial documents, and also has digital printing facilities. Its litho print is outsourced to a strictly-controlled selection of vetted suppliers.

It claims to have the biggest in-house typesetting facility of its kind in Europe.

“The financial printing market has changed significantly in recent years,” Black explained. “Whereas we used to produce documents that were 100pp with print runs of thousands, that has now been turned on its head. Lawyers are drafting ever-bigger prospectuses so we could be producing a 1,000pp document, but with a run of only 100-500 copies.”

The firm’s specialist typesetting system allows multiple operators to work on the same document, and includes all the necessary compliance marks for proofing.

He said Imprima Financial Print and Imprima iRooms share the same client base and will continue to work closely together as trading partners.

Mercurius supported the MBO deal through a vendor loan, and Black and Callow were advised by legal firm Rawlison Butler and Samuels Corporate Finance.

The deal was completed at the end of November.