Michael Huber München and Hostmann-Steinberg, the firm’s largest European operations will be merged as Hubergroup Deutschland.

Stehlin+Hostag in Switzerland, Michael Huber in Munich and Hostmann-Steinberg in Celle have all manufactured heatset, coldset and sheetfed inks. Under the reorganisation production will be rationalised with Munich and Celle specialising in different products, including the production of UV ink relocating from Switzerland to one of the German sites.

“As a global player we need a global approach,” said Stehlin Hostag UK managing director David Ward. “Switzerland is not a cheap place to manufacture. With the German sites producing ink for the whole of Europe there will be efficiency and logistics savings; they are both closer to the UK.

“The new cost structure will help mitigate price pressure.”

It will also merge the Swiss sales operation Stehlin+Hostag with recent acquisition Amra Farben. The combined entity will be known as Hubergroup Schweiz and be based at the former Amra site in Rapperwil-Jona.

The firm is currently in discussions with local works councils on the number of redundancies. It stated that the German operations faced "minor cuts" while the Swiss site would "bear the major burden".

Before the end of the year the UK operations will also be rebranded from Stehlin Hostag to Hubergroup UK and the sub brands Stehlin Hostag and Hostmann-Steinberg will disappear.

Hubergroup’s restructuring came as fellow consumables supplier Flint warned of rising raw material prices.