The 12m-turnover commercial and corporate print business was placed into administration yesterday due to "legacy financial problems and the loss of one of its largest clients". Its managing director and controlling shareholder Angus Steel has left the company.

Hughes, who was with Goodhead Group prior to joining the former Virgin print management arm in 2001, will become managing director of the new company.

Thomas Potts chief executive Mark Scanlon and finance director Richard Fookes are also investors in the business, which will trade as Wace in the short term.

All 90 of Wace's staff along with its presses, three Heidelberg B1 long perfectors, have been retained by the company and it will continue to trade from the existing 4,000m2 purpose-built factory.

Hughes said he and his fellow Ringdark directors had been talking to a number of parties with a view to a buy-in. "Obviously it's sad that Wace's legacy financial problems and the loss of one of its largest clients has resulted in it being placed into administration. However this presented us with an opportunity to save what is, without doubt, an excellent high-quality printer with a great reputation and fabulous range of clients," he said.

Wace recently won PrintWeek's Report & Accounts Printer of the Year and Brochure Printer of the Year awards. But despite the high standard of print it produced the company was not able to sort its complex financial situation, which dates back many years, prior to Steel's buyout of the business from the old Wace group in 1998.

Murray Booker, formerly of Close Print Finance, who worked closely with Wace following the buyout said: "I appreciate, from a Close viewpoint, the considerable effort that Angus Steel has put in over this period in an attempt to keep things afloat. This clearly has taken its toll on Angus who I understand will have no involvement with the new company going forward. I personally, wish him all the best."

Hughes added that he and the new team were "committed to rebuilding the business and once again making it one of the most successful independent commercial printers in the UK."

Story by Lauretta Roberts