Christmas cards to crackers group Fine Art today unveiled proposals to split the company.

The group, one of East Lancashire biggest employers, is proposing to split the greeting cards division to form a separate company from the mail order division.

Locally the group employs several thousand workers at sites including its Express Gifts mail order centre, Delgado Christmas cracker factory at Nelson, and Hambledon Studios greeting cards site at Accrington.

The mail order division includes catalogue names such as Studio, Webb Ivory and Ace.

Under the proposals to shareholders, Fine Art Developments will keep the mail order division but the greetings cards and stationary division will be transferred to a new company, Creative Publishing, to be listed on the stock market.

The firm today said the split would benefit both areas of the business with management being able to focus more clearly on their own markets.

Under the split, which will go to an extraordinary general meeting on October 3, Fine Art shareholders will receive one Creative Publishing share for each Fine Art share they hold.

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