Steve Whittingham and Chris Noonan will retire after selling Venture Business Forms, which has turnover of £4.8m and 30 staff. The two bought the company from its original owner in 1987.

The MBO team are Gavin Dickson, Laurie Ward, Glynn Sellors and Mark Whitworth, who between them have almost 60 years of experience with VBF.

Dickson said: “This is quite a successful firm with a good name, so we would like to keep this the same. But eventually we want to increase the sales force and recruit new staff, perhaps at all our sites.”