Ian Brown, currently regional sales director with James McNaughton, will head the business.

Brown, who will take on the role of director, is currently understood to be assembling a team of people that will be regionally based.

James McNaughton marketing director Tony Porter said Onform would be purely focused on the business forms market, and not on any other areas of the business, as sales personnel had been in the past. "They will provide a better knowledge and understanding of the market, and be able to see where it is developing," he said.

Opportunities in areas where growth potential lay would be more readily noticed with dedicated reels personnel, he added, and said that another benefit to customers will be that reels ranges of the three merchant companies will be pooled, so a broader, wider and deeper stock range will be on offer.

Porter said stock control would be handled in the Midlands for regional distribution.

Onform reels will be officially launched on 1 July.