The Cramlington, Northumberland-based business, which has offices in the UAE and India, has now extended its reach to New Zealand after signing an agreement to buy Opti-flex from its owners Jeff and Elaine Hogg, as they head to retirement.

The 17-year-old Antipodean business, which has sites in Christchurch and Auckland, will officially become part of the Reproflex3 group from 1 October, being rebranded as R3 NZ.

Similar to Reproflex3, Opti-flex specialises in providing pre-press services such as artwork, file preparation, proofing and platemaking to the packaging industry, while UK-based R3 has developed two flagship screening technologies, Vortex and Project Blue, for the branded packaging printing market.

Reproflex3 has 32 UK staff and 70 globally with a turnover of around £4.5m, while Optiflex has 15 employees and turns over around £3m annually.

Andrew Hewitson, who co-founded Reproflex3 25 years ago with business partner Trevor Lowes, said Optiflex was the perfect fit for the group.

“There are a lot of synergies between Optiflex and R3. We’ve known the guys down there for seven or eight years and we share ideas and directions and it’s been a really friendly relationship,” he told Printweek.

“Optiflex uses a lot of similar technologies to R3,” he explained. “Really we’ve had an open platform for collaboration with our technical teams and it just made logical sense for the current owners as they have neared retirement.”

Hewitson added: “Jeff and Elaine wanted to get more energy into the business and get good value for its employees, being part of a bigger organisation like R3 where we have the ambition to grow new networks and find new outlets for the technologies we have. It feels like we have been aligning for this for a while.”

Manager of the newly rebranded R3 NZ, Angus Cooper, said: “We are delighted to join forces with Reproflex3. They understand our business and have an excellent reputation for service and innovation within the industry.

“Coming together to create R3 NZ creates an advantage for our customers, in addition to our existing range, our customers will also have access to an enhanced collection of high-quality products and services. This includes the very best advanced pre-press tooling, digital workflows, state-of-the-art screening technologies, aniloxes, doctor blades, plate manufacture and mounting tapes.”

He added: “As a futureproofed and stable pre-press supplier, we are 100% focused on capturing the supply chain efficiencies that will give our customers everything they can get out of pre-press to become even more successful.”

Through a global partner network, R3 has sold its technologies into the US and Europe as well as the UK, Middle East and India.