Review of 2018: September

All the biggest stories from the past 12 months.

Cornwall-based Four Way Print and Devon subsidiary Blue Sky Design & Print went into administration three months after being bought... London-based printer Callprint was looking for buyers as a notice of intention to appoint administrators was posted at the High Court.. Threatened strike action over pay at Communisis’ cheque plant in Crewe have been suspended after management made a revised offer to Unite members... Rotherham-based Bluetree Group subsidiary Route One Print will become the first UK company to install a Landa S10P Nanographic printing press... Liverpool-based gravure printer Prinovis UK added web offset to its production facilities with the purchase of the 16pp Goss M600A hybrid web offset press from the shuttered G&H site... Agfa Graphics acquired the pre-press business of Spanish manufacturer Ipagsa shortly after it agreed a partnership with Chinese manufacturer Lucky HuaGuang Graphics... Europa Print & Mailing Solutions went into creditors’ voluntary liquidation after losing two key accounts... Talk Design & Print acquired the assets and goodwill of commercial printer Zest... Hobs Group has acquired Callprint’s trade and assets in a pre-pack, taking on its London, Uxbridge and Bristol branches. Callprint’s Birmingham and Croydon sites have been shut, with Liverpool mothballed... Williams Lea Tag acquired computer-generated imagery specialist Taylor James in a bid to become one of the world’s leading omni-channel marketing partners to global brands... Royal Mail expanded its overseas reach with the acquisition of North American parcels delivery firm Dicom Canada... Falkland Press rebranded as Printed Easy to reflect the firm’s decision to focus wholly on online sales via its associated website... Flint Group announced price increases for its conventional and UV sheetfed inks and coatings in Europe, some into double digits, due to increasing challenges in the raw materials supply chain... Awesome Merchandise’s crowdfunding campaign raised nearly twice as much money as its initial target, reaching a total of £690,290, gaining the support of 1,126 investors and representing a 10.89% stake in the firm... Reach Printing Services signed a contract to print a number of the Metro titles being published by DMG Media... Two Bolivian nationals Marcelo Alpire Alpire and Juan Carlos Guzman-Murillo were convicted by Inner London Crown Court for making and supplying false passports and ID documents. They were sentenced to three years and four months, and a year respectively... Bedfordshire-based Watkiss Automation was acquired by rival manufacturer and Morgana owner Plockmatic Group... De La Rue won a three-year contract to produce currency for the Swedish central bank, Sveriges Riksbank... Scotland’s print membership body Print Scotland spoke out against the Scottish government’s print procurement policy as another contract looked likely to be placed south of the border... Printers and pre-press firms were revealed to be among the major creditors of SP Group, which owed unsecured creditors more than £4.9m when it went into administration in July... Kall Kwik Farnham was bought by one of its suppliers, former Apogee sales account manager Bill Clayton, who worked with the firm for more than a decade in his previous role...