WILTSHIRE based ColourCare, the UK's largest wholesale photoprocessor, is being bought by its management in a £55m deal arranged and led by Gresham Trust, the private equity house, and initiated by corporate financers at Ernst & Young in Southampton.

Leading the management buy-out is Bill McInnes, 53, who becomes managing director of the company. It has a 1,600 strong workforce at seven UK laboratories and its head office at Salisbury.

ColourCare provides a next-day developing, printing and photo imaging service to more than 13,000 shops nationwide, ranging from major high street chains to independent pharmacy and photographic outlets.

It claims the strongest distribution channel of any photo processor and handles around 22 million films annually.

Through its QMS division, it is the UK's largest processor of estate agency property photographs.

This year is expects to achieve a turnover of £55m and its growth prospects are supported by ongoing development of innovative added-value products and services, new digital-based services and the rising popularity of the Advanced Photo System.

Bernard Norman, 58, becomes non-executive chairman. He is non-executive chairman of the Morris Homes Group, the Simon Jersey Group, the Prize Food Group, Wallace Arnold, Tulchan and Pall Mall Support Services.

Also in the buy-out team are David Rose, 39, Kevin Stagg, 48, and Glen Burdett, 32, as sales directors, and Alan Vincent, 51, as information technology director.

Mr McInnes said: "We intend to build on ColourCare's exiosting strengths of a comprehensive and innovative product and service portfolio backed up by high standards of quality and customer care. Ryan Robson, who led the transaction for Gresham, part of the Hampshire-based Zurich Financial services Group, with Mark Hammond, joins the Colourcare board as non-executive director.

He said: "ColourCare has a unique own-label offering. Gresham is committed to backing the management to build upon the strong infrastructure and service standards of the business.''

Richard Jones and Tony Trussell of Ernst & Young's southern region corporate finance team in Southampton, inititiated the transaction and acted as lead adviser.

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