The new deal, which will also reduce the firm's wage bill, comes into force on the 11 April, just over one month after The Print Factory (TPF) bought a 70% stake in the firm.

"Over the years pay at the firm has gone up and up and it was becoming commercially unviable," said TPF managing director Steve Brundle. "It's no good throwing money at something that you could never make pay, so now we've sorted the problem we're going to throw money at it," he added.

Future investment at Wace's Swindon plant will be a new 10-colour press, the firm is currently in "very advanced" talks with several manufacturers.

Brundle heaped praise on everyone involved in the new pay deal at Wace, from management through to the staff and Amicus GPMS, which he described as being "very realistic".

He also added that while the firm's not quite back in the black yet "the losses in March were one-fifth of those in February".

As a result of the new pay agreement eight of the 90 staff at the firm have taken voluntary redundancy.

Story by Darryl Danielli