Diversification is one everyone's lips right now, but reports that Xerox Corp was in M&A talks with US printer RR Donnelley have been countered with a "not interested".

Last week, reports starting in Bloomberg said the copier company - which is in the process of splitting itself into two - was in the early stages of negotiating the purchase of Donnelley, one of the world's largest (if not the largest) commercial printers. But later reports said the Xerox advisory board reviewed RR a Donnelley proposal before saying it was not interested.

Initial talk set share prices rising.

A reverse takeover would have come as no surprise. Over the years, Donnelley has grown by acquisition, buying Canadian Bank Note Company's financial printing business (2006) and a number of others, bidding for Quebecor World, and most recently adding Consolidated Graphics to its stable (2013).

Last year it announced it would split into three different companies - RR Donnelley & Sons, LSC Communications and Donnelley Financial Solutions.

It's in the latter area that the real synergies exist: One of the two Xerox companies will be a business process outsourcing company, with scope to grow its $7 billion revenue, while the other - slightly larger at $11 billion - stays with the core document technology of printers - including inkjet webs for digital newspaper printing - and copiers.

Donnelley is also active in print technology, and cooperated with sheetfed and newspaper press maker KBA on the development of its RotaJet inkjet webs ahead of their 2013 launch.

Xerox in turn has been looking for new profit areas in software and services as businesses look to eliminate print and move to digital workflows.

Pictured: Xerox at the giant DRUPA printing trade show (Photo: Messe Düsseldorf/ctillmann)