The sale is slightly complicated by the fact Intoprint's directors, Richard Lax and Patrick Bywater, bought the business and assets of Ormside using a related business, OPL Digital (OPLD), which they acquired immediately beforehand.

According to the administrators' report, the reason OPLD was used as the purchase vehicle was because it had been trading in digital sales and because it owned the litho equipment used by Ormside (which leased it from OPLD).

The report states that Frank Philand and Michael Barrett, the former directors of both Ormside and OPLD, resigned as directors of and sold their shares in the latter to Lax and Bywater, prior to Ormside's administration and pre-pack sale to OPLD on 14 March.

Lax told PrintWeek: "We've never been involved with Ormside Press, this is purely an acquisition. The [former] directors of Ormside are still working for us but they are not directors anymore. We bought OPLD and then OPLD bought the goodwill and assets and took the staff on from Ormside.

"The two [former directors] obviously held a lot of the goodwill, so without them a lot of the clients would have disappeared and we couldn't afford that to happen, so the guys are still in there maintaining the client relationships, which is what they're employed to do."

Lax said that he and Bywater had been looking to acquire another print business to bolt onto Intoprint as part of their growth strategy and that the Ormside administration had provided the ideal opportunity to add B1 litho capability to Intoprint's existing line-up of Ryobi B3 litho, Xerox digital and Roland wide-format equipment.

"Our core business is business forms but we do some brochure work and some bigger stuff that's suitable for B1 which in the past we've had to pass on to other printers," added Lax. "Now we're going to be able to keep that within our group; we've got a bit of a foothold in the B1 market but we haven't been able to exploit it because we haven't had a B1 facility."

Ormside Press runs a five-colour Heidelberg CD102 plus coater, which it bought secondhand in January 2013. It had an (unaudited) turnover of £2m for the year ended 31 December 2012, although Lax said he believed it would be around a £2.2m turnover business under Intoprint's ownership.

While the sale of Ormside to Intoprint has safeguarded the jobs of the firm's staff, the news was less positive for the firm's trade creditors, which totalled more than £650,000 at 31 October 2013 based on management accounts (although the largest unsecured creditor was OPLD).

According to the administrators' report, Ormside Press fell into arrears with HMRC and a number of trade suppliers in the final quarter of 2013, leading to an unsuccessful attempt by HMRC in February 2014 to seize the company's assets.

This prompted the directors to seek the advice of Resolve Partners, which was appointed special accountants to the business on 14 February to assist in conducting an accelerated marketing campaign of its business and assets.

This led to a total of six parties completing an NDA, although only one offer was subsequently received, for £25,000, which the joint administrators accepted.

The company's book debt ledger was not included in the sale as its invoice discounting facility with Aldermore had been utilised in full. At 14 March, the book debt ledger was £216,741 and Aldermore was owed £160,094 (excluding termination and associated charges).

Aldermore will continue to collect amounts due until it is repaid in full; it is not yet certain whether there will be a surplus available to the company's creditors.