The contract was previously with Adare Carwin and had been under review, as exclusively revealed by PrintWeek (20 November).

The London print and facilities management group won the deal after Abbey had conducted an extensive review of the print procurement marketplace.

Williams Lea UK managing director Miles Toulson-Clarke said the contract was one of the biggest the company had taken on.

Its certainly up there among our largest, he said. The contract will include all of Abbeys marketing print, direct mail, point of sale material, and warehousing.

We introduced ourselves to Abbey a couple of years ago, and we knew they were going to be conducting a review of the market at some stage, said Toulson-Clarke.

He said that the company provided a competitive tender and was selected on that basis.

There are relatively few contracts of this shape and size that come along, and so we are delighted to have won this, he said.

In outsourcing its print procurement, Abbey aims to achieve significant cost reductions across its present print spend.

Toulson-Clarke said the Abbey deal will involve a larger than normal dedicated account team being placed within the operation at Abbeys Milton Keynes site.

This, he said, would involve an increase in staffing levels within Williams Lea, an operation that was already under way.

The Abbey contract is one of the first for Williams Lea this year, but Toulson-Clarke said the company was actively working on other possible deals.

Williams Lea clients include NSPCC, Avis Europe, Castrol, HFC Bank, Debenhams and O2.

Story by Andy Scott