Jason Baker and Philip Armstrong of FRP Advisory were appointed joint administrators on 25 June. The company was then marketed as a going concern, during which time a number of potential buyers expressed an interest, with several making offers. However, the offer by the firm’s founder Maurice Grainger was chosen as the strongest bid, resulting in him buying the company back on 4 July. “This has been a transformational restructuring for Alpine Press. The administration process has ensured that the business has emerged in a more robust position to continue servicing its customers’ needs under the ownership of a New Company overseen by the same, experienced management team,” said Baker. Grainger founded the company in the mid 1960s, growing it to a £5m business that employed 49 staff. The administrators laid off 14 staff, primarily across production and admin, shortly after their appointment. “When I founded this company, 47 years ago I didn’t think I would be in this situation today, but the margin has just got tighter and tighter,” said Grainger. The Kings Langsley-based commercial litho and digital printer recorded sales of £4.9m and pre-tax losses of £235,000 in 2011, although according to Grainger it had clawed back to break even in 2012. “I don’t think that many in the industry could deny that there has been a definite downturn since last November. But we have also been unfortunate in that in the past 18 months, we have picked up over £200,000 of bad debt,” said Grainger. The company was hit by one customer alone to the tune of £90,000. “We’ve had to take them [the bad debts] and pay for all the paper and all the sundries on them and to try and make that kind of money up has become more and more difficult,” said Grainger. “I’m sure that some people will look down their nose, thinking I’ve pre-packed or something. I haven’t. I don’t feel good about this at all, but at least I’ve saved 37 jobs. It’s been awful and I’m not in this position out of choice, but I’m hoping to keep these people employed.” Grainger plans to consolidate the business from its current two buildings into a single unit to reduce overheads. While he conceded that the market hasn’t got any easier, he said that he believed that by taking out some of the non-profitable work and realigning its cost base, then the underlying business is solid.He added that customers had generally been very supportive. “I haven’t not paid them [suppliers], and over my career I’ve spent nearly £30m in paper alone,” said Grainger, although he didn’t want to go into detail on the level of debt at the ‘old’ company. “It...

Jason Baker and Philip Armstrong of FRP Advisory were appointed joint administrators on 25 June. The company was then marketed as a going concern, during which time a number of potential buyers expressed an interest, with several making offers. However, the offer by the firm’s founder Maurice Grainger was chosen as the strongest bid, resulting in him buying the company back on 4 July. “This has been a transformational restructuring for Alpine Press. The administration process has ensured that the business has emerged in a more robust position to continue servicing its customers’ needs under the ownership of a New Company overseen by the same, experienced management team,” said Baker. Grainger founded the company in the mid 1960s, growing it to a £5m business that employed 49 staff. The administrators laid off 14 staff, primarily across production and admin, shortly after their appointment. “When I founded this company, 47 years ago I didn’t think I would be in this situation today, but the margin has just got tighter and tighter,” said Grainger. The Kings Langsley-based commercial litho and digital printer recorded sales of £4.9m and pre-tax losses of £235,000 in 2011, although according to Grainger it had clawed back to break even in 2012. “I don’t think that many in the industry could deny that there has been a definite downturn since last November. But we have also been unfortunate in that in the past 18 months, we have picked up over £200,000 of bad debt,” said Grainger. The company was hit by one customer alone to the tune of £90,000. “We’ve had to take them [the bad debts] and pay for all the paper and all the sundries on them and to try and make that kind of money up has become more and more difficult,” said Grainger. “I’m sure that some people will look down their nose, thinking I’ve pre-packed or something. I haven’t. I don’t feel good about this at all, but at least I’ve saved 37 jobs. It’s been awful and I’m not in this position out of choice, but I’m hoping to keep these people employed.” Grainger plans to consolidate the business from its current two buildings into a single unit to reduce overheads. While he conceded that the market hasn’t got any easier, he said that he believed that by taking out some of the non-profitable work and realigning its cost base, then the underlying business is solid.He added that customers had generally been very supportive. “I haven’t not paid them [suppliers], and over my career I’ve spent nearly £30m in paper alone,” said Grainger, although he didn’t want to go into detail on the level of debt at the ‘old’ company. “It...

The packaging giant, which bought Multigraphics only five years ago in a move into the point-of-sale (POS) market, confirmed that it entered into consultation with staff at the Bradford site on 20 June. The 4,200sqm facility employs 60 people and specialises in retail display work such as POS, retail-ready packaging, floor graphics, outdoor media and banners. DS Smith Packaging said in a statement: “If agreed during the consultation process, the proposal will involve the consolidation of all display manufacturing into our Ely site, while maintaining a sales and administration team in Bradford. This may result in redundancies at the Bradford site.” The business moved to assure customers that “usual service and quality will be maintained”. Last month FTSE 250-listed DS Smith group posted a 51% profit increase to £165m on revenues of £3.7bn, up 86% year-on-year. The figures are the first annual results since it completed the £1.3bn acquisition of Swedish-owned SCA Packaging in July last year. Revenue from its UK operations, however, remained flat at £961m (2011: £960m). Commenting on DS Smith’s UK performance over the last 12 months chief executive Miles Roberts said: “While our core UK corrugated packaging business has delivered a robust performance, revenues for the overall UK division have been impacted by continuing weakness in the paper market, as a result of which, prices and demand have remained subdued. “Focus going forward would be to continue growing the packaging and recycling businesses, while reducing our exposure to paper manufacturing and disposing of non-core businesses and assets.”...

The packaging giant, which bought Multigraphics only five years ago in a move into the point-of-sale (POS) market, confirmed that it entered into consultation with staff at the Bradford site on 20 June. The 4,200sqm facility employs 60 people and specialises in retail display work such as POS, retail-ready packaging, floor graphics, outdoor media and banners. DS Smith Packaging said in a statement: “If agreed during the consultation process, the proposal will involve the consolidation of all display manufacturing into our Ely site, while maintaining a sales and administration team in Bradford. This may result in redundancies at the Bradford site.” The business moved to assure customers that “usual service and quality will be maintained”. Last month FTSE 250-listed DS Smith group posted a 51% profit increase to £165m on revenues of £3.7bn, up 86% year-on-year. The figures are the first annual results since it completed the £1.3bn acquisition of Swedish-owned SCA Packaging in July last year. Revenue from its UK operations, however, remained flat at £961m (2011: £960m). Commenting on DS Smith’s UK performance over the last 12 months chief executive Miles Roberts said: “While our core UK corrugated packaging business has delivered a robust performance, revenues for the overall UK division have been impacted by continuing weakness in the paper market, as a result of which, prices and demand have remained subdued. “Focus going forward would be to continue growing the packaging and recycling businesses, while reducing our exposure to paper manufacturing and disposing of non-core businesses and assets.”...

As well as being co-located with Cross Media 2014, which will run from Tuesday 25 to Thursday 27 March and feature its own seminar programme, Ipex will play host to The World Print Summit, which will feature a 250-seat auditorium on the show floor. “The whole idea is that over five and half days we’ll host a superb conference, with speakers including leading figures from print, business and the creative and marketing communities. These will be iconic figures, real thought-leaders,” said Ipex 2014 event director Trevor Crawford. Ipex is targeting around 25 inspirational speakers for the Summit. Eight months out from the show, 10 have already signed up including: Polestar chief executive Barry Hibbert, St Ives chief executive Patrick Martell, Benny Landa, Rochester Institute of Technology professor emeritus Frank Romano, futurologist Richard Watson, Clive Humby, one half of the company that created the Tesco Clubcard, and Rory Sutherland executive creative director OgilvyOne London and vice-chairman Ogilvy & Mather UK. “I think print is being revitalised and is being shown to be the real heartbeat of a marketing campaign and it’s important to hear how people like Rory see print’s role. Clive will be able to talk about everything that sat behind the Clubcard, the data and print’s role in creating one of the world’s most iconic customer engagement programmes,” said Crawford. “These are the kind of people that you could pay a lot of money to hear talk, and we’re providing all this for free. I think it’s going to be inspiring,” he added. To build on the theme of inspiration, another new feature will be the Inspirational Avenue in the boulevard area between the North and South halls of Excel. Organised by former Kodak UK marketing manager Pat Holloway, it will highlight “clever applications” of print, ranging from 3D printing through to the latest developments in inkjet. “The idea is to champion print’s role across the whole marketing mix,” said Crawford. Also new for 2014 will be the Ipex Masterclass seminar programme, organised by former Infotrends senior consultant Barney Cox, which will look at wide-format, digital print, sustainability and packaging. “Barney will develop a seminar programme to look at the trends impacting the industry today, but also tomorrow,” said Crawford. Ipex will also launch the Make Ready Challenge for 2014, where teams of printers will compete against the clock to makeready a “mature” five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM74. Heats will be run thoughout the show, with a winner revealed before the final day. “This will be the fun part of the show and we’ve already received interest from a lot of potential entrants,” said Crawford. The final new feature, and possibly the most ambitious, will be the Future Innovations...