The group, which owns Dundee-based Winter & Simpson, and Barr Printers of Glenrothes, bought A4 Design and Print and Moravian Digital Press on 29 February in a full share purchase.

A4 and Moravian, based in Inverness and Elgin respectively, were both owned by David Ritchie, who was looking to retire.

“[A4] is performing very well – it’s a nice little B3 printer with a bit of digital,” Michel Crichton, operations manager at Winter & Simpson, told Printweek.

“Elgin is a two-person office, with a little bit of digital and finishing plant, and does a lot of short-run labels for clients in that area, like special cask labels [for whisky] – it’s a nice niche market that fits very much into our business and ethos.”

East of Scotland Colour Print then bought the customer book and intellectual property of Highland Print and Design on 4 March.

A small, two-person copyshop based in Inverness, Highland was a longtime trade customer of Winter & Simpson for much of its work. Owner Douglas Greig had been looking for a change in direction, Crichton said.

Highland’s operations have now been absorbed into A4, with Greig partner Joanne joining A4's 11-strong team.

Crichton said: “We bought it to supplement A4, and help grow our sales in the short term; in the long term we were looking to put something in the ground in the Inverness area, because we think it’s a very good area to go and start looking for work, so we’re looking to probably expand the workforce in that area.”

No redundancies have been made across either of the purchases. The entire East of Scotland Colour Print group, now numbering 62 across four sites, has in fact been geared up for growth, supported by substantial investment at Winter & Simpson over the past two years.

Since early 2022 the firm has invested around £1.5m, largely on plant and an extension at its Dundee site – with a £750,000 four-colour Heidelberg SX75 installed in late 2022.

With the addition of A4, Moravian, and the business of Highland Design & Print, the group is aiming to grow from around £4.5m to £5.5m, Crichton said.