As a result the firm has made 14 redundancies mostly in administration, but including two sales roles.

RES managing director Robin East would not comment on rumours of RES sale to Westcoast, but elaborated on the deal between the two firms: "RES is a sales and marketing company, it makes pure commercial sense," he said.

The move doesnt affect the firms core sales and marketing activities, which include its pre-press and digital print operation RES Workflow, its consumables sales or its wholesale business handling the Hewlett-Packard DesignJet range of ink-jet printers.