The loss was an increase of 83% on the same period last year.

The past 12 18 months had seen a considerable restructuring at the group. This has seen us take some difficult medicine as we pushed forward, he said.

The companys end of year results are usually published in the autumn, but Wheatley said the figures to June 30 2003 had been withheld until now in order to show the improvement that had been seen in the business.

The first four months of this financial year had seen a considerable improvement in commercial print, which had seen the group win a number of new contracts.

Although Wheatley said he could not elaborate further, the last two months had also seen Cradley return to profitability with a strong cash flow.

The group's pre-tax loss of 2.6m for the period was up 57% on 2002, including exceptional charges of 397,000 relating to the cost of the reorganisation of the business and redundancies. Turnover for the year was down 15% to 24.2m.

Cradley completed a redundancy programme earlier this year, which saw staffing levels fall from 474 to 320.

Wheatley said that although the business had instigated a continuous improvement programme to reduce costs, overheads had now been reduced to an appropriate level for the current market and customer levels.

We are aiming to be a company that provides good service levels and doesnt just chase after the cheap work, he said.

By Andy Scott