The £20m deal was waved through without any contentious scenes at this morning's Extraordinary General Meeting, with 99.6% of votes cast by shareholders in favour of the deal.

Walstead Investments directors Stephen Hargrave, Mark Scanlon, and Richard Fookes were in attendance; along with Wyndeham Press Group chief executive Paul Utting, who said: "Now the real work begins."

Once the legal formalities are completed later today, the £70.5m turnover business and 670 employees of what was St Ives' magazine group will become part of the Walstead-owned Wyndeham Press Group, propelling the business into market-leading position in UK web offset printing.

St Ives' share price was unchanged at 101p at the time of writing.