Blue Star New Zealand announced today in a brief statement: "Blue Star Group has confirmed it has purchased all the fixed assets of Geon, effective immediately.

"Fifty Geon staff have been offered employment by Blue Star Group, including a number of key senior management. In addition, a number of Geon staff will be offered a short term employment contract to support the Highbrook site which will continue to operate until further notice.

"Blue Star Group says staff and customers are being advised of the purchase."

It is understood that Geon had more than 250 staff in New Zealand, which suggests the redundancies could approach 200, although some of those people have been some short-term contracts.

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Geon will not continue operating; Blue Star has acquired Geon's assets, which will be incorporated into its business.

It creates an unprecedented situation with such a large share of the sheetfed print market held by a single company in both countries.

Sturgess acquired Geon's Christchurch-based labels business on 4 March. In that deal, he pledged to repay all bona fide pre-existing debts to staff and suppliers.

It is not expected that this new deal will include the pre-existing debt, which can be expected to be far greater than in the Kiwi Labels deal.

There are remarkable parallels between the deals in Australia and New Zealand. In both cases, former owners of Blue Star – Selig in Australia; Sturgess in New Zealand – left the industry in better economic times only to return, first to acquire their former companies and now to take over the biggest rival.

Blue Star New Zealand and Blue Star Australia are separate companies.

[Analysis: The story behind the Geon collapse]

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