News

Williams Lea is understood to be on the verge of signing a massive print, mailing and fulfilment contract worth up to £200m with finance giant HBOS.

Due diligence is currently underway on the deal, which is rumoured to be worth between £100m and £200m and which includes transactional and promotional print, mailing and fulfilment.

According to sources, business process outsourcing specialist Williams Lea will take on HBOS’s customer communication centres in Ches­ter, Halifax and Birmingham, should the deal go ahead.

HBOS, which owns Halifax and Bank of Scotland, would not comment on the deal, but said: “Like any major company, we constantly monitor and review our business processes – printing is no exception.

“We continuously talk to suppliers about potential services they could provide and how they could help us manage our printing processes.”

In addition to the proposed facilities transfer, it is understood that Williams Lea would take on a number of HBOS staff, under TUPE regulations, as part of the deal.

Williams Lea declined to comment when contacted by PrintWeek.

According to Postcomm’s 2007 competitive review of the UK postal market, HBOS sends out an average of 450m items of mail per year, ranging from first class specialised mailings to bulk downstream access.

Williams Lea already provides similar services for a number of financial services clients including Norwich Union, AXA and Prudential.