The deal was secured last Friday (16 March), following the appointment of David Chubb and Robert Birchall of PricewaterhouseCoopers as joint administrators of the £2.75m-turnover firm last Tuesday (13 March).

The administrators initially tried to sell Romsey, which was founded in the 1960s, as a going concern, but, following the withdrawal of a bidder, they were forced to make all the firm’s 37 staff redundant.

MPI managing director said: “On a human level, it is sad to see well-run companies with a loyal workforce, such as Romsey Group, go out of business, but I believe it highlights a bigger issue that faces printers operating in the sub-£5m sales area of commercial print.”

MPI hopes to roll “most” of the printing group’s sales into its Romsey-based Borcombe SP operation, itself bought by the acquisitive firm a little over a year ago.

MPI director of operations Ben Crozier, who will oversee the integration, said: “All sales and customer relations staff have been offered employment with Borcombe, while permanent factory-staffing plans will be formulated in the coming weeks.”

This is the second such deal for MPI this year, after it bought the principal assets of Garden House Press (West) last month, with the aim of consolidating its order and customer book into Friary Press, which it bought in January.

For more on this story, see Thursday’s issue of PrintWeek.