Cinski competed against 15 other finalists from around the world to take the coveted title along with €9,500 (£8,000) worth of prizes. The final was held on 29 June, the last day of Fespa London, the wide-format expo’s 50th show, and attracted a large audience from the show’s 22,000 visitors, around 13,500 of which were overseas attendees. Cinski, along with Dutch team-mate Rob Buursen of 12Wrap, part of Netherlands-based advertising firm Jabe Reclame, also took third place in the Nations Cup wrapping event, in which teams of two battled it out for best team performance. Cinski said: “It was a pleasure and honour to compete arm to arm with the best installers from around the world. I would like to thank the competitors, judges, sponsors and everyone else that was involved in making the event happen.” The Wrap Cup was first introduced at Fespa 2010 in Munich and has proved an increasingly popular feature of the wide-format show. Duncan MacOwan, Fespa’s head of events and new media, said: “The Wrap Cup Masters is always an exciting and fast-paced competition and this year has been no exception. With the addition of the Cup of Nations we’ve watched some of the world’s best vehicle wrapping superstars battle it out providing a crowd magnet.”...

Paperlinx chief executive David Allen will take on Carr’s role in the interim, with Carr’s direct reports – commercial print managing director Andy Buxton, packaging managing director Marc Jacobs and VTS managing director Frank Moran – now reporting to him. “We made the change at the request of the board. It was part of the ongoing management change of the business worldwide, where we are constantly looking at our structure and costs and how we can move the business forward,” said Allen. Prior to being promoted to UK managing director in December last year, after Allen’s interim appointment as chief executive was made permanent, Carr had held a number of senior finance positions across Paperlinx’s operating businesses and is understood to have joined the company more than 10 years ago. Carr resigned as a director of Paperlinx at Companies House on 5 July. “Phil had done lots of good work on the restructuring and refinancing of the business, all of our cost reductions ran to plan [for example],” said Allen. “But at the end of the day we need to constantly review people’s roles and the costs of the organisation and it was a change the board wanted, and I was willing to take on that additional role temporarily. The board asked me to take on the UK business and as a consequence Phil has left his position.” Allen stressed that Carr had not been made redundant and while the company’s restructure was an ongoing process, there are no other planned management changes at this time. Carr is now understood to be on a period of ‘gardening leave’ and was unavailable for comment at the time of writing. Allen said that Paperlinx would be looking to appoint a new UK managing director in the long term, although he said recruitment would not begin until the autumn at the earliest. He added that there wasn’t “one single factor” behind Carr’s departure. “It’s about having the right management at the right time; there is no criticism of Phil at all. He was a finance specialist and handled the restructuring and refinancing and did that very well. It’s now time to look at what sort of management we need next.”...

Paperlinx chief executive David Allen will take on Carr’s role in the interim, with Carr’s direct reports – commercial print managing director Andy Buxton, packaging managing director Marc Jacobs and VTS managing director Frank Moran – now reporting to him. “We made the change at the request of the board. It was part of the ongoing management change of the business worldwide, where we are constantly looking at our structure and costs and how we can move the business forward,” said Allen. Prior to being promoted to UK managing director in December last year, after Allen’s interim appointment as chief executive was made permanent, Carr had held a number of senior finance positions across Paperlinx’s operating businesses and is understood to have joined the company more than 10 years ago. Carr resigned as a director of Paperlinx at Companies House on 5 July. “Phil had done lots of good work on the restructuring and refinancing of the business, all of our cost reductions ran to plan [for example],” said Allen. “But at the end of the day we need to constantly review people’s roles and the costs of the organisation and it was a change the board wanted, and I was willing to take on that additional role temporarily. The board asked me to take on the UK business and as a consequence Phil has left his position.” Allen stressed that Carr had not been made redundant and while the company’s restructure was an ongoing process, there are no other planned management changes at this time. Carr is now understood to be on a period of ‘gardening leave’ and was unavailable for comment at the time of writing. Allen said that Paperlinx would be looking to appoint a new UK managing director in the long term, although he said recruitment would not begin until the autumn at the earliest. He added that there wasn’t “one single factor” behind Carr’s departure. “It’s about having the right management at the right time; there is no criticism of Phil at all. He was a finance specialist and handled the restructuring and refinancing and did that very well. It’s now time to look at what sort of management we need next.”...

Among the many topics covered in an in-depth interview for the current issue of PrintWeek, Paperlinx executive director Andrew Price said the goals of the merchant trade bodies, unlike those that directly support Paperlinx customers, didn’t fit with its “better, faster, cheaper” strategy. “I don’t care how many tonnes we sell, I don’t care what our market share is, the only thing I’m interested in is how much profit we make. When I can pay my electricity bill with market share, then I’ll consider it a reasonable statistic,” said Price. “I would be happy for our market share to reduce, if our profits increased. In the past, some of our people and some of our competitors were so concerned with market share that they were giving away profit. That just doesn’t make sense. We need to move away from this obsession with tonnage, we need to focus on adding value.” One of the key services of the NAPM is its paper statistics, which reveal the volume of paper being sold by UK merchants and is used by some as a barometer of the industry’s health. Without the inclusion of Paperlinx’s sales volumes, which account for around 40%-50% of the market, the statistics will have limited value. However, an increasing number of industry watchers question whether other metrics, such as value, present a fairer, more realistic reflection of the industry’s health. In the future, Price said that Paperlinx wants to focus its efforts on supporting bodies and events that support its customers. “Anything that supports our customers, we want to support. We’ll be a strong supporter of the BPIF, we are also very supportive of Fespa,” he said. “I think we’ll probably still support Two Sides, because I think that does add value to the industry, but we will watch them to see what they achieve.” NAPM director Tim Bowler confirmed that the Paperlinx companies Howard Smith, PaperCo and Robert Horne had given notice of their intention to resign at the end of 2013, but said that they would remain members until that time. He added that he was very keen to maintain a dialogue with the Paperlinx companies and was due to meet Price later this month to discuss the merchant’s withdrawal. However, Bowler said he didn’t want to comment specifically on Paperlinx’s withdrawal until after he had met with Price. “The NAPM has been going since 1920 and while Paperlinx are the single largest member, they’re still only one of the members, and the Policy Group is committed to ensuring that the association continues, maybe in some different shape or form,” said Bowler. “The Paperlinx companies have always been the staunchest of supporters of the NAPM up until...

The company launched its Luxe Business Cards in 2012, claiming to be the first digital printer to offer “super-premium” business cards, with just one fixed-size card available. The extended range, targeted predominantly at small businesses, includes Luxe Notecards, Postcards and Minicards. Using Mohawk superfine at 600gsm the whole range can be printed in four colours, with an optional seam of colour running through the centre layer of the card, and personalised down to individual cards. Minicards measure 70x28mm while the postcards and notecards are 148x105mm. Print runs start at 10 pieces with bulk orders available starting from £23.99 for 100 minicards and £19.99 for 10 notecards or postcards. Moo.com director of marketing Paul Lewis said that since the release of Luxe Business Cards last year the division had been a “very fast growing area” of overall business. “Those who are real lovers of branding quality have been crying out for more since we launched Luxe. It was a natural move to launch a suite of consistent branding and extend the paper stock across the new products,” he added. Lewis said that people were beginning to adopt old forms of communication such as invites and thank you cards and that Moo.com was hoping to harnass that with the launch of Luxe Notecards. He added: “The humble thank you note is making a comeback and speaks volumes more than emails so this is about educating small businesses and helping them differentiate themselves over and above the standard printed products that people tend to use. We’re really hoping to fill a gap in the market.”...