CONTRACT printing and marketing services group Communisis said trading is in line with expectations as it contemplates a third year of “significant growth” in a trading update today.

The Leeds-based group employs more than 200 staff at its printing centre on Speke’s Estuary Commerce Park.

Earlier this year it announced investment in two new high speed colour digital presses at its Liverpool plant which will strengthen its position as a leader in the emerging market for transpromotional communications that allow the insertion of personalised and targeted marketing messages on documents, such as bills and statements.

It said this will open up new service opportunities, as well as improve efficiency.

Its update for the third quarter ended September 30, today, said its markets for the group continue to evolve rapidly and offer considerable opportunities.

The statement said: “Many of the UK’s leading consumer-facing brands increasingly recognise the value of the group’s ability to design, produce and deploy their customer communications efficiently, reliably and at scale.

“This has led to more projects incorporating our design services and resulted in a strong pipeline of bids that we expect to be confirmed before the year-end, for implementation early in 2013.”

Projects during the year include the high profile launch of the new mobile phone brand EE, formerly Everything Everywhere, which offers the UK’s only 4G mobile and fibre broadband service.

However, it announced changes today in response to a reduction in demand for more of its “mature” products and to manage its costs which include the closure of its cheque personalisation services in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, and a restructuring of its direct mail operation in Leeds.

Both actions are expected to be completed next January, resulting in overall costs of £1.5m, but annual savings of £1.3m.

Chief executive Andy Blundell said today: “The focus at Communisis continues to be the successful pursuit of profitable growth.

“We are building our reputation as the trusted partner for the provision of customer communication services and in this context are pleased with the interest being shown by a number of major brands in the strength of our market-leading propositions, especially for transactional documents, and look forward to announcing further new multi-year contract awards in the near future.”