Entrepreneurial brothers merge their respective North East businesses to aid expansion

Two entrepreneurial brothers, Richard and Peter Bennett, have decided to merge their respective print and signage businesses with assistance from Durham law firm Swinburne Maddison LLP.

Richard and Julie Bennett, directors of commercial printing operation, NPS Print, and Peter Bennett, managing director of large format and digital printing company, Strategic Print, decided that as their businesses provided complementary services, merging the two would bring a host of new opportunities and provide a service of greater depth.

NPS Print is based on Whitehouse Industrial Estate, Newcastle, whereas its contemporary, Strategic Print, is based at Sunderland Enterprise Park,

The merger saw Swinburne Maddison’s Alex Wilby, a partner in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, representing the Bennett family’s interests once again, having previously acted in the acquisitions of Atkinson Print Limited in 2019 and Caremore Services Limited in July 2021.

Carefully planned for the last 12 months, the merger will see all 20 members of staff retained across both companies, without any duplication of roles. The newly formed business began trading under the name of NPS Ltd at the beginning of July.

For the moment, the restructured business will operate from NPS’ current premises with a move to larger premises looking increasingly likely at some stage in the future as the business grows.

Richard Bennett commented: “As individuals, Peter and I were fortunate to preside over two successful businesses which had much in common yet provided complementary, non-competing services.

“We had discussed the possibility and practicalities of working together for some time and in essence, the more we looked at it, the more it made perfect sense.

“As we both have national clients, the merger will not only strengthen our combined performance, bringing together Peter’s vast print knowledge and Julie’s and my scale up experience, but we are also looking at new capital investment in equipment to streamline the operation and of course, create further efficiencies in the existing businesses.

“We are looking forward to offering an expanded range of services to our customers up and down the country, which will inevitably lead to some future job creation and are excited by the opportunities that will undoubtedly lie ahead in new markets.”

Alex Wilby was assisted in the transaction by associate solicitor, Ellie Bradshaw, and trainee solicitor, Ashley Patterson.