ADARE, the publicly quoted printing group, is on the brink of a major British acquisition understood to be in the region of £25 million to £30 million, according to industry sources.

It is understood Adare would fund the acquisition through a debt package already agreed with a syndicate of banks. The package could inflate Adare's gearing to about 150 per cent. Adare's huge cash flows made the unusually high gearing acceptable, said one industry source. A rights issue was not expected.

Industry sources believed the most likely target of the acquisition was the British Prontaprint Group, although Adare would make no comment last night.

Adare's finance director, Mr Peter Lynch, said. "It is widely known that we would prefer an acquisition of scale." Market sources have believed for some time that Adare was looking at making an acquisition of up to £50 million.

Adare's largest acquisition to date has been the £12 million purchase of Mount Salus Press last May. The computer manual and school book printer helped Ad are to increase its pre-tax profits by 413 per cent to £4.098 million for the six months to October 31st 1995.

Sources last night believed that Prontaprint was the most likely target. The principal activity of the Darlington based group is the supply of design, print and copy services to franchised outlets in Britain and Ireland. It has seven franchise outlets in the Republic, two in Northern Ireland and about 250 in Britain.

Prontaprint, which employs 162 people, also supplies added value stationary products to large companies. Another subsidiary, Fairfield, was one of Europe's largest suppliers of paper and film for digital imaging equipment.

Prontaprint was purchased in a management buy out from publicly quoted Continuous Stationary in September 1992.