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Administrators from Zolfo Cooper are understood to be on-site at the firm, which was formerly known as MPG Books.

However, there has not yet been official confirmation that the business has gone into administration.

A source close to the situation said that while administrators were on-site, they might not be officially appointed until Tuesday, after the bank holiday weekend.

MPG has plants in Bodmin, King's Lynn, and recently opened a new plant in Cambridge following its takeover of the Cambridge University Press (CUP) printing operation last year, which resulted in a major restructuring of the group's manufacturing sites.

Chief executive Tony Chard was unavailable for comment at the time of writing, and the company's phones were diverting to an answerphone service.

The takeover of the CUP facility, and the resulting costs involved with relocating equipment and setting up a new MPG plant in Bar Hill, Cambridge, appears to have resulted in a cash crisis at the company.

Nigel Gawthrope, FOC at the Cambridge site, said: "There was a £500,000 budget to set the factory up, and it actually cost £1.7m. They didn't allow enough time for the machines to bed in and go into production.

"We knew there was a bit of a cashflow problem, but we thought it had turned the corner," he added.

Cambridge University Press operations director Sandra Waterhouse issued a statement this morning on behalf of the publisher.

She said: "The management team of MPG today announced it is to go into administration. In July 2012 Cambridge University Press placed a large proportion of its UK printing with MPG Books Group. The agreement also saw the Press's in-house printing department, and most of the staff, transferred to MPG.

"This transfer was undertaken in good faith and, as well as allowing the publishing groups the flexibility they need, was seen as a way of securing continued employment for staff otherwise facing redundancy through the potential closure of the Press's printing operation.

"Throughout the contract to date we have offered every support to MPG and we are sorry that the business is now facing administration as a result of cash flow problems. Our production directors are considering what this means for our production requirements and will be taking steps to minimise the immediate impact."

At the same time as setting up the new Cambridge facility MPG was also carrying out a £4m investment plan that involved a new Timsons T-Press and HP Indigo 10000 B2 digital press for its Biddles site in King's Lynn.

Just three months ago Chard said the group was "still highly acquisitive" and planned to use its revamped manufacturing platform to expand its services into "book-like products".

It was also poised to invest in high-speed colour inkjet technology with KBA, HP and Kodak in the frame as potential suppliers.

Its most recently-filed results are for the year to 31 December 2011, so exclude the major restructuring carried out over the past 18 months. In 2011 the business made a pre-tax profit of £813,000 on sales of £19.4m and had 238 employees.

Check printweek.com for updates on this story.

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Parent company Daily Mail Group Trust (DMGT) said the decline was partly mitigated by the MailOnline's 61% revenue growth to £20m (2012: £12m), although this is still dwarfed by printed revenues.

Combined revenue for the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline declined by 4% to £306m, which was attributed to an 8% decline in overall print advertising revenue and the 6% decline in circulation revenue.

London's free paper Metro was hit by a post Olympics revenue decline of 8% to £40m (2012: £44m).

Overall DMG Media, the division comprising DMGT's newspapers, Zoopla, Wowcher and digital recruitment firm Evenbase, posted a 6% increase in operating profit on revenues of £406m (2012: £435m).

DMGT chief executive Martin Morgan said good overall underlying performance reflected the strength of the group's B2B companies and the resilience of its national consumer titles.

He added: "As expected, reported operating profit increased despite a decline in reported revenue resulting from recent disposals.

"Our UK consumer business, DMG media, continued to experience challenging conditions and underlying revenues were slightly down, although the increase in digital revenues more than offset the decline in print advertising revenues."

"We have continued to actively manage our portfolio of businesses and have made several acquisitions and disposals during the period and into the second half, to improve the overall quality and growth prospects of the group."

Morgan said that he expected comparatives in the second half of the year to be adversely impacted by the timing of biennial events and the Olympics, which were one-off benefits in the second half of the last financial year.

"Overall, the outlook for the full year remains unchanged," he added.

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"Our customers are buying paper to print on and therefore add value to, their customers may well want to buy packaging, copier paper or whatever and we can facilitate that and fulfil those orders," said Paperlinx UK managing director Phil Carr.

"Printers have deep relationships with their customers so we're just trying to make that relationship stickier. What we're doing is providing an income stream that printers would not have had access to before, importantly, without tying up their cash. It really is that simple," he added.

The service is known internally as "printers' webstores" and the first webstore is expected to go live in the coming days, although Carr declined to reveal the name of the first user. PaperlinX is currently also in advanced discussions with another six customers.

In essence the service is a white label online storefront that printers can add to their websites. The storefronts will offer around 500 Paperlinx products, ranging from blank packaging, office paper, consumables and other media.

"Everyone we've spoken to sees the value in it, because we're all experiencing a decline in volumes. It's a low cost, no risk opportunity and people get that," said Carr.

"It stems from us trying to develop initiatives to enable our customers to bolt on new revenue streams. Of course if it's good for their business, it's also good for us because it continues our evolution from simply being a supplier of paper," added Carr.

The webstores will be branded in line with the printer's own branding. They will be full e-commerce enabled sites where customers can pay by credit card, although invoice options will also be available.

Once placed, the orders will be delivered direct to the printer's customers via Paperlinx's 250-strong logistics fleet, based across DeliveryCo's 24 distribution hubs.

The products will be supplied at a fixed price, to ensure a common pricing structure, which will be set by Paperlinx across all printers' webstores. Printers will then generate a pre-determined "healthy" commission based on order value, which will then be either paid directly to the printer or credited to their Paperlinx account.

"It's a simple value added service for the printer to their customers, it plays into our strengths of logistics and breadth of products. We as merchants should be helping our customers to offer solutions to their customers and this does exactly that, it really is a win-win for all concerned," said Carr.

The pilot "printers' webstores" service will initially be offered to 50 pre-selected Paperlinx customers, but Carr said over time it would be opened up. In terms of initial set up costs to the printer, Carr described them as "minimal", but he added that they would depend on a variety of factors, such as volumes.

While the service will initial focus on 500 products, Carr said that more products will be added over time - once the demand has been identified.

The scheme is being launched in the UK, but Paperlinx expects to roll it out across Europe by the end of the year.

Carr hinted that Paperlinx might introduce other similar initiatives in the near future, however he declined to reveal further details.

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Located near Hamburg, the new location will provide additional office and manufacturing space.

IPT has more than 25 years experience in the printing and hot stamping industry.

Kimoha Entrepreneurs, located south of Dubai, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year with its third Gallus press.

Drying and curing specialist IST Metz will stage its sixth UV Days event on June 17-20, focusing on multi-functionality and sense perception.

Ink manufacturer Ruco has launched a new opaque white product intended for use in combination printing processes.

Durst has appointed Christoph Gamper as its new chief executive officer (CEO).

Rotocontrol is moving to new headquarters in the coming weeks as it looks to handle increased demand for its finishing equipment.

The company attributed the fall in pre-tax profits to "significantly increased non-recurring expenses" relating to the acquisition of rival web-to-print firm Goodprint UK, in November last year, and the subsequent closure of the Goodprint facilities and transfer of operations into its sites in Newcastle and London.

Underlying operating profit saw a modest 6% increase to £1.62m (2012: £1.53m), including a £230,000 contribution from the acquisition of Goodprint, which fell short of company expectations.

Revenues for the group, including marketing agency Tangent Snowball, Printed.com, Tangent On Demand, and the company's Newcastle printing division Ravensworth, were up almost 12% to £24.3m (2012: £21.72m).

Of this, Printed.com contributed £3.95m, with sales growth increasing by 99% boosted by the integration of Goodprint, including the brands of Goodprint and Smileprint. Between 13 November 2012 and 28 February 2013 Goodprint contributed £1.2m in revenue. The company said that with its loyalty scheme tie-up with Avios, signed in March this year, and a high level of returning customers, Printed.com was making a consistent profit.

Sales for Tangent Snowball meanwhile declined from £10.8m in 2012 to £10.65m while revenues at printing arm Ravensworth slid 7% in line with market decline to £6.25m.

The company said that any spare capacity in its Newcastle facility was being used by its retail websites. Additionally the firm has reviewed its work for the estate agency market and plans to migrate all templates online so that estate agents can place orders online for a broader range of products.

Tangent On Demand, the company's on-demand digital print service, showed strong growth with sales up 5.2% to £2.24m. The company said that the increase of higher margin products on a range of substrates improved the competitive edge of the business with gross margin expected to improve further through 2013 and 2014.

The board proposes a final dividend for the year to 28 February 2013 of 20p per share (2012: 20p). If approved at the company's AGM shareholders will be paid on 2 August.

Chief executive Timothy Green said the year had been "transformational" for Tangent. "Our retail websites printed.com and goodprint.co.uk now generate a large proportion of our sales and profits. We aim to capitalise on our position in the UK market and gain a greater share of the European markerts we now service," he added.

Green said that Tangent was entering the new financial year with clear "vision" and an exciting business proposition.

He added: "Tangent will grow as our online customers buy from an expanded range of products on printed.com and goodprint.co.uk. We will continuously optimise our websites to acquire and convert customers more efficiently."

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The plant is the 46th facility to achieve TLMI LIFE Certification.

A new facility will provide shorter lead times and reduced costs for label converters in Australia and New Zealand.

The Colordyne 1600PC digital printing system features near-perfect registration and smoother gradations without grain or hard lines.

Customers can now upload their art directly to the website or for larger files, upload it to a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site.

The report, Cyber Security and Fraud: the impact on small businesses, published by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), is the result of a partnership between the FSB, the Home Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) that examined the types of cyber crime affecting businesses in the UK and its impact on them and the wider economy.

The report shows that of 2,667 FSB members, surveyed between September and October 2012 as part of the investigation, 41% had been victims of cyber crime in the past 12 months.

Twenty per cent said their business had suffered as a result of virus infections in their software systems while 8% had been victims of hacking and 5% said they had been affected by security breaches.

The report found that almost 20% of businesses had no protection against cyber crime, a worrying statistic when the amount of businesses using the internet to trade increases year-on-year.

Of those affected 11% said they had lost between £1,000 and £4,999 as a result, 3% had lost between £5,000 and £9,999 while 1% had lost £50,000 or more. The average cost to a business was £3,926.

Launching the report, FSB national policy chairman Mike Cherry said cyber crime was a growing threat and businesses could not afford to ignore it.

He added: "Many businesses will be taking steps to protect themselves but the cost of crime can act as a barrier to growth. For example, many businesses will not embrace new technology as they fear the repercussions and do not believe they will get adequate protection from crime.

"While we want to see clear action from the government and the wider public sector, there are clear actions that businesses can take to help themselves."

In response to the findings, the FSB has issued a list of top tips to help businesses safeguard themselves against potential attack by cyber criminals.

Tips include implementing a combination of security protection applications, carrying out regular security updates on all software and devices, implementing a resilient password policy and securing wireless networks adequately.

Cherry added: "I encourage small firms to look at the 10 top tips we have developed to make sure they are doing all they can.

"We want to see the government look at how it can simplify and streamline its guidance targeted specifically at small firms and make sure there is the capacity for businesses to report when they have been a victim of fraud or online crime."

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Around 112,000 CWU members will receive ballot papers asking them four questions (see below), one of which asks: "Do you support the boycott of competitors' mail".

While the ballot is primarily targeted at strengthening CWU's hand in negotiations with Royal Mail on pay, privatisation and working conditions - a strong yes vote on the question of boycotting DSA mail would give the union the mandate to introduce a boycott.

"This ballot is about protecting the interests of our members and the future of the UK postal service. It is time to challenge Royal Mail and send a strong message to the government and regulator. The consultative ballot deals with the complex issues facing our members and the postal industry. We're asking postal workers to support the union or allow Royal Mail a free hand to determine their future - there is no fence to sit on," said CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward.

The ballot will run until 18 June, with the result expected the following day. The union stressed that the vote is not a ballot for industrial action.

The union claims that Royal and regulator Ofcom have no policy to deal with DSA competition and it fears that when TNT rolls out its own delivery network nationally, profits from DSA will be "wiped out". It also said that "Unfair competition has undermined the universal service obligation and the jobs of our members" and it hoped that a boycott will force the government and Ofcom intervene on the issue.

According to a CWU spokeswoman, the union would rather not take strike action. However, she added that a "strong yes vote" on the boycott would give it enough of a mandate to introduce it and, as the boycott would not be legally classed as industrial action, there was no requirement to give the mandatory seven days notice to Royal Mail.

"Anecdotally, at a lot of the conferences and forums we've had in the past four or five months there has been a lot of support for a boycott, but as there would be so many people involved in it, 112,000, we really would like to them to be able to have their say," she said.

"We won't be holding a separate industrial action ballot, as this is something different."

However, the union is entering uncharted territory by deeming the boycott as exempt from industrial relations legislation because it's unclear whether the boycott could mean that CWU members are in effect breaking their contracts of employment.

"It's never been done before, so it's very much a bridge to be crossed, so we're going to have to see how things pan out," said the spokeswoman.

"If we don't have to take the action, then we won't just take it bloody minded. The whole reason we're staging the ballot is to flag up what we see as unfair competition. If we can get that resolved [with regulator Ofcom] without having to take this action, then of course we will do that. But we haven't seen any movement on that in the past year," said the spokeswoman.

In March, Ofcom set out its measures to protect the universal postal service. However, the measure only applied to competitors providing an end-to-end service, not DSA operators.

CWU ballot questions

• Do you support the CWU Pay claim?
• Do you oppose the privatisation of Royal Mail?
• Do you support the boycott of competitors' mail?
• Do you support the policy of non-cooperation?

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The Channeled Resources board of directors has elected Cindy White to the position of president and chief executive officer (CEO).

The Flexographic Technical Association (FTA) has welcomed 156 new members in the past six months, 85 of which joined in the first quarter of 2013.

Esko has celebrated the career of Simon James at the recent EskoWorld 2013 user conference, where the founder of the ArtiosCAD software was given a standing ovation by attendees at the conference’ opening session.