Edinburgh-based Editions trades as Editions Financial and specialises in content marketing for clients in the financial sector.
Communisis has paid £5.87m for the firm made up of cash and £1.7m worth of newly-issued shares. The total consideration is £7.1m including cash acquired with the Editions business.
Editions Financial posted sales of £2.6m and a pre-tax profit of £500,000 in the year to 31 August 2012.
Communisis chief executive Andy Blundell said the Editions offering and specialism in financial services was “uncannily close to the strategic sweet spot” for the group.
“The key part is the analytics behind their content management offering, along with content creation and the delivery of that,” he said.
“It all fits with the trend towards providing content that is sufficiently relevant and interesting for people to look at.”
Editions Financial employs 31 and its services include digital marketing, social media, apps, video and print including customer magazines and direct mail.
Founders Caspian Woods and Ruth Stewart-Simpson will remain with the business for at least two years.
Blundell said the acquisition would be earnings-enhancing, and analysts have upgraded their profit forecasts for the group for the 2014/2015 financial year.
He said there was considerable growth potential for Editions, as part of an integrated group offering: “We’ve got plans for ongoing revenue growth of 20%-plus a year with this business and we think we can achieve that.”
The deal means that Communisis has now spent the £20m it gained through a rights issue earlier this year.
“We’ve absolutely delivered on what we said we’d do,” Blundell added. He said further M&A deals remained possible.
Communisis’ share price has slipped from its 52-week high of 68p over the past two months, but was up 1.5p today at 56.5p.