about us

Acorn started in Batley, producing newspapers and general print

Acorn moved to Bradford and invested in 2 Newspaper Presses and 2 stitching lines. Two years later in 1989 we bought our Normanton site to house a Heatset Press and a further stitching line. In 1991 the Bradford site was then closed for all equipment to be transferred to Normanton.

Hurst Group Holdings purchase Wiltshire’s a print company base in Bristol. One year later in 1993 buy Acorn to safeguard the production of the weekly Auto Trader magazines.

BC Partners purchase Hurst Group Holdings to form Trader Media Group.

Also, later in the same year the Rotoman 60 web press was installed.

In 2000 the Trader Media Group was also formed from BC Partners and Guardian Media Group. A year in which we won 'Catalogue Printer of the Year!' at the Print Week Awards.

In 2002 we appeared in the Business Review Newspaper!

The Guardian bought out BC Partners so that the Trader Media Group was wholly owned by Guardian Media Group. Apax partners then buys 49.9% of Trader Media Group from the Guardian. 

Shortly after in 2008 the Guardian Media Group then announced its exit from print.

Garnett Dickinson Group buys Acorn from Trader Media Group and also install a 12 station Muller Martini Corona perfect binder.

Nick Alexander leads an M.B.O with Mark Roberts and Matt Carry making Acorn a wholly independent printing business for the first time since the 1980’s. A new strategy is introduced specialising in A4 and A5 products.

Read more about the M.B.O > 

The first investment of the M.B.O team is a KBA Rapida 105 UV sheetfed press, which transforms cover production by limiting the need for outwork cover varnishing and improves response times and logistics.

Two years later in 2016 a second M.B.O at Acorn is performed with Claire Rennison joining the Board of Directors. The majority of Nick Alexander’s shares are acquired and the business accelerates its major investment plans.

The largest investment in the company’s history at £6m is realised. The install of a state of the art 32pp Lithoman web press with advanced technology improving productivity and paper waste efficiency is purchased from MAN. This together with the latest pre-press workflow, plate processors and additional storage facility changes the dimension of the business.

Read more about the investment >

In 2022 to support growth in direct mail A5 catalogue demand, Acorn invests in a high speed Muller Martini Bravo Plus stitching line.

A further investment of a Muller Martini Prima Plus Stitching line is added.

Also with rapidly rising energy costs in sharp focus the business introduces a series of energy and material saving investments that also positively impact the environment. These include the install of responsive LED lighting across both factories saving 250,000 kw/h of light energy. A new energy eco-plate processor saving 1 million litres of water and new paper waste compactors saving 10,000 HGV miles in reduced collections.

As future investments are identified an agreed share purchase option is exercised resulting in Nick Alexander leaving the business after 10 years of dedicated leadership.