The deal, announced at the end of last year, includes two 3.88m-wide gravure presses that will be installed at the as yet undecided location, in January and February 2005.

Polestar Group chief executive Barry Hibbert said that the firm had also considered the 4.3m-wide KBA press, the first of which is being installed at Maul-Belser in Germany, but had opted for the Cerutti because of its flexibility. The presses will be able to produce 144 A4 pages in a single pass, as well as tabloid-sized products.

The 3.88m gives a better yield for press width and we will be able to utilise different cylinder widths. They will produce a mixture of work from our existing workload as well as new ones in the pipeline, said Hibbert.

However, he added that the final decision on the presses location had not been taken. Two UK locations are being considered as well as sites on mainland Europe. A site in Wakefield is understood to be an option.

We have got the final submissions in [of possible Greenfield sites] and are evaluating them. We had to get the press order in now because they take a year to build, said Hibbert.

The order for six seven-station Unidrum 3-420s is Ferags largest single order for drum stitchers. The Unidrum 3-420s, which comprise saddle stitching, inserting, wrapping and glue-card insertion, can handle A4 and tabloid-sized products at 30,000 cph.

The bindery systems will be installed at the groups existing magazine plants from this spring, with the first probable recipient being Leeds.

Hibbert added that the groups plan to close its Watford web offset plant, which it announced in December last year, stayed unchanged. Polestar is currently in a 90-day consultation process with the workforce and unions.

Story by John Davies