Sheffield-based P&A Partnerships has been appointed and is understood to be seeking buyers for the company as a going concern, as well as seeking offers for its individual entities – label printing, labelling machinery and commercial print.

However, P&A Partnerships has yet to return calls from PrintWeek or its sister title Packaging News and Session's main phone number was going unanswered at the time of writing.

According to local reports, staff at the 200-year-old £6m turnover business were sent home yesterday (22 April), while phones are not being answered today.

A statement from director and owner Mark Sessions said: "The worldwide recession has had a devastating effect on our sales. It has also caused the value of the pound to fall heavily against the euro, which has forced up paper prices by over 30%.

"In a weak, highly competitive market, we have been unable to pass on all this enormous cost increase to our customers and the consequence has been that our margins have been squeezed to a level which makes it impossible to continue trading.

"Furthermore the company carries the burden of a large deficit in a final salary pension scheme. We deeply regret the hardship that this will cause our employees and our creditors."

One industry expert commented that "the writing may have been on the wall" for the company as long ago as last June when Sessions announced that the company, which was started by his great grandfather William, was put up for sale.

Rival label firms are understood to be interested in the business.