Deluxe to Acquire NEBS

(Direct Newsline)Deluxe Corp. will acquire cataloger New England Business Service (NEBS) for about $587 million. St. Paul, MN-based Deluxe expects this acquisition to save the company $25 million a year, beginning in 2005, through eliminating redundancies and boosting productivity.

Deluxe spokesperson Stu Alexander said this might involve work force reductions but added it was too early to tell whether it would just involve attrition or employee layoffs. NEBS has about 3.1 million small-business customers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and France. It markets checks, forms, packaging supplies, and other products.