The company's acquisition of the specialist document capture and management business, for an undisclosed sum, follows rival Astron's buy of Edotech in April 2004.

Williams Lea chief executive Tim Griffiths said he wanted to make sure that clients had a choice in this market.

"We are pretty determined that they will have one by the end of the year in terms of the way we want to take this forward," said Griffiths.

"We have been planning an e-billing initiative for some time now," he added.

Formation is a specialist in the field of taking data feeds and delivering smart billing. The company has carved out a niche in supplying personalised bills, statements and documents for mobile and fixed-line telecoms companies.

"It's a critical acquisition as we have a number of other initiatives sitting around the Formation acquisition," he said.

In particular, Williams Lea is looking to establish a production centre, which will most likely be based in Scotland.

Griffiths said Formation's front-end technology would help it to do this. This technology forms part of a scanning, coding and indexing capability that Williams Lea is setting up for its financial services client, Prudential.

The London-based print and facilities management group will take on the 32 staff at Borehamwood-based Formation, including managing director Simon Howell.

Formation's clients include Carphone Warehouse, Vodafone and Telecom Plus.

Story by Andy Scott