De La Rue announced it was to close its Peterborough facility at the end of last year (PrintWeek, 27 November 2003), following a review of its Security Paper and Print division.

TALL Group managing director Martin Ruda said the company was constantly looking at the market for opportunities to purchase or joint ventures.

This fits in with our plans to continue to expand our business in our core product area, he said.
The two parties will work now together to ensure a trouble-free transfer of the customer base.

Clearly we are looking for opportunities such as this, and the move follows a number of discussions with several parties since the closure announcement, said De La Rues head of corporate affairs, Mark Fearon.

The deal effectively means that the TALL Group has bought the contracts and business opportunities that come with the customer base.
This comprises some 300 clients, a mixture of financial institutions and corporate companies.

Fearon emphasised that the purchase did not include the plant or any equipment, and nor would any of the former 145 employees at the site transfer over to the new owners.

In January this year the TALL Group secured a print contract to produce around 700,000 cheques for Black Horse, part of the Lloyds TSB Group.
The TALL Group also prints the cheques that are handed out to the winners of ITVs Who Wants to be a Millionaire? programme.

Its businesses comprise of Checkprint in Leicestershire and TALL Security Print in Cheshire.

Checkprint was a runner-up in the SME company of the year category in the PrintWeek awards for 2002.

The group employs more than 150 people, and has a turnover of around 8m.