Dunedin-founded printer Wickliffe - which has been through extensive restructuring in recent years - is said to be merging with Kalamazoo, a privately owned printing company with links to India.
An Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union spokesman said the union had heard about the merger.
A union representative was expected to be briefed yesterday, and would know more after speaking to the company.
About 70 of the printer's more than 160 staff are employed in Dunedin; in production at Kaikorai Valley and its Mosgiel distribution centre.
Attempts to contact chairman Charles Miller were unsuccessful yesterday.
Kalamazoo is owned by husband and wife team Steve and Odelia D'Souza.
A spokeswoman for Kalamazoo, who did not identify herself, confirmed the merger, NZPA reported yesterday.
It employs 102 people at plants in Auckland and Christchurch as has links to a large D'Souza family printing business in Bangalore, according to ProPrint, a print industry magazine.
Kalamazoo has been growing via acquisition, buying Computer Forms in May 2005, Raven Print in February 2007, Wyatt and Wilson in April 2009, and Publishing Press in September last year.
During the two years to mid-2009, Dunedin's printing sector was hard hit, with costs, competition and technology driving closures and large redundancies.
In early 2007, Wickliffe, which has been in business for 62 years, reduced its Dunedin production staff, cutting 48 jobs from a total 70, because of increasing work generated from an earlier business acquisition in Auckland.
It moved production to Kaikorai Valley and had a distribution centre in Mosgiel, employing about 70 people, with the balance of 210 in Auckland at the time.
Wickliffe Press evolved from a small Dunedin job printing company, Wilson and Ratcliff, first registered in 1945, and was bought by the Sidey family.
In 1948 its name was changed to Wickliffe Press, more recently abbreviated to Wickliffe.
