Metroland Media Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Torstar, has acquired the assets of Central Ontario Web Ltd. in Barrie, Ontario. The deal for the coldset web plant, involving 47 full-time employees, was completed in late May and brings added printing capacity to Metroland for its publications North of the Greater Toronto Area. Metroland publishes and prints 100 community papers across Ontario, COW will be its 10th printing location. "I think we picked up a real diamond in the rough and we are very excited with this purchase," notes Peter Marsh, senior vice president of printing for Metroland. "From a production perspective the plant is ideally located to serve our northern papers as well as provide more options to our commercial clients." He also adds that the plant will print overflow work from its other plants. Central Ontario Web was founded in 1990 by Jim Gilbert and Kris Kennedy, and in November 2004 was acquired by George Grigaitis, with additional capital from private equity fund VenGrowth Capital Partners. The web offset printing company's sales at that time were around $13 million. The company recently added UV curing to one of its coldset lines, but Marsh indicates Metroland will convert the UV press line back to cold web to better serve its papers. "We will also invest capital into the press lines to provide more colour and flexibility to the newspapers as well," he adds.