Administrators from Zolfo Cooper are understood to be on-site at the firm, which was formerly known as MPG Books. However, there has not yet been official confirmation that the business has gone into administration. A source close to the situation said that while administrators were on-site, they might not be officially appointed until Tuesday, after the bank holiday weekend. MPG has plants in Bodmin, King’s Lynn, and recently opened a new plant in Cambridge following its takeover of the Cambridge University Press (CUP) printing operation last year, which resulted in a major restructuring of the group’s manufacturing sites. Chief executive Tony Chard was unavailable for comment at the time of writing, and the company’s phones were diverting to an answerphone service. The takeover of the CUP facility, and the resulting costs involved with relocating equipment and setting up a new MPG plant in Bar Hill, Cambridge, appears to have resulted in a cash crisis at the company. Nigel Gawthrope, FOC at the Cambridge site, said: “There was a £500,000 budget to set the factory up, and it actually cost £1.7m. They didn’t allow enough time for the machines to bed in and go into production. “We knew there was a bit of a cashflow problem, but we thought it had turned the corner,” he added. Cambridge University Press operations director Sandra Waterhouse issued a statement this morning on behalf of the publisher. She said: “The management team of MPG today announced it is to go into administration. In July 2012 Cambridge University Press placed a large proportion of its UK printing with MPG Books Group. The agreement also saw the Press’s in-house printing department, and most of the staff, transferred to MPG. “This transfer was undertaken in good faith and, as well as allowing the publishing groups the flexibility they need, was seen as a way of securing continued employment for staff otherwise facing redundancy through the potential closure of the Press’s printing operation. “Throughout the contract to date we have offered every support to MPG and we are sorry that the business is now facing administration as a result of cash flow problems. Our production directors are considering what this means for our production requirements and will be taking steps to minimise the immediate impact.” At the same time as setting up the new Cambridge facility MPG was also carrying out a £4m investment plan that involved a new Timsons T-Press and HP Indigo 10000 B2 digital press for its Biddles site in King’s Lynn. Just three months ago Chard said the group was “still highly acquisitive” and planned to use its revamped manufacturing platform to expand its services into “book-like products”. It was also poised to invest...

The winning project involved a partnership between PhotoBox, web specialist Overthrow Digital and The Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts. The mammoth initiative resulted in 200,000 children’s self-portraits, which had been submitted through UK schools and charities such as Mencap and Kids Company, being projected onto the front of Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. Each child’s portrait was then included in an online photo-gallery, created by Photobox, from which visitors could buy mugs, t-shirts or mouse mats printed with the images. 20% of all revenue from the purchases went to The Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts. PhotoBox co-founder Graham Hobson said the project, which took nine months of preparation, had been a refreshing change. “It was great for us to do something so creative rather than just for commercial purposes. We needed to think about how to interact with children rather than our usual target audience, particularly when it came to the type of products we were offering from the online gallery,” he explained.” Hobson said that receiving the award was a great honour and the experience had been unforgetable, not only for the children whose self-portraits were projected onto the palace, but for the staff at PhotoBox. “It was really a proud moment for us and our families,” he added....

The winning project involved a partnership between PhotoBox, web specialist Overthrow Digital and The Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts. The mammoth initiative resulted in 200,000 children’s self-portraits, which had been submitted through UK schools and charities such as Mencap and Kids Company, being projected onto the front of Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. Each child’s portrait was then included in an online photo-gallery, created by Photobox, from which visitors could buy mugs, t-shirts or mouse mats printed with the images. 20% of all revenue from the purchases went to The Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts. PhotoBox co-founder Graham Hobson said the project, which took nine months of preparation, had been a refreshing change. “It was great for us to do something so creative rather than just for commercial purposes. We needed to think about how to interact with children rather than our usual target audience, particularly when it came to the type of products we were offering from the online gallery,” he explained.” Hobson said that receiving the award was a great honour and the experience had been unforgetable, not only for the children whose self-portraits were projected onto the palace, but for the staff at PhotoBox. “It was really a proud moment for us and our families,” he added....

“Our customers are buying paper to print on and therefore add value to, their customers may well want to buy packaging, copier paper or whatever and we can facilitate that and fulfil those orders,” said Paperlinx UK managing director Phil Carr. “Printers have deep relationships with their customers so we’re just trying to make that relationship stickier. What we’re doing is providing an income stream that printers would not have had access to before, importantly, without tying up their cash. It really is that simple,” he added. The service is known internally as “printers’ webstores” and the first webstore is expected to go live in the coming days, although Carr declined to reveal the name of the first user. PaperlinX is currently also in advanced discussions with another six customers. In essence the service is a white label online storefront that printers can add to their websites. The storefronts will offer around 500 Paperlinx products, ranging from blank packaging, office paper, consumables and other media. “Everyone we’ve spoken to sees the value in it, because we’re all experiencing a decline in volumes. It’s a low cost, no risk opportunity and people get that,” said Carr. “It stems from us trying to develop initiatives to enable our customers to bolt on new revenue streams. Of course if it’s good for their business, it’s also good for us because it continues our evolution from simply being a supplier of paper,” added Carr. The webstores will be branded in line with the printer’s own branding. They will be full e-commerce enabled sites where customers can pay by credit card, although invoice options will also be available. Once placed, the orders will be delivered direct to the printer’s customers via Paperlinx’s 250-strong logistics fleet, based across DeliveryCo’s 24 distribution hubs. The products will be supplied at a fixed price, to ensure a common pricing structure, which will be set by Paperlinx across all printers’ webstores. Printers will then generate a pre-determined “healthy” commission based on order value, which will then be either paid directly to the printer or credited to their Paperlinx account. “It’s a simple value added service for the printer to their customers, it plays into our strengths of logistics and breadth of products. We as merchants should be helping our customers to offer solutions to their customers and this does exactly that, it really is a win-win for all concerned,” said Carr. The pilot “printers’ webstores” service will initially be offered to 50 pre-selected Paperlinx customers, but Carr said over time it would be opened up. In terms of initial set up costs to the printer, Carr described them as “minimal”, but he added that they would depend on a...

“Our customers are buying paper to print on and therefore add value to, their customers may well want to buy packaging, copier paper or whatever and we can facilitate that and fulfil those orders,” said Paperlinx UK managing director Phil Carr. “Printers have deep relationships with their customers so we’re just trying to make that relationship stickier. What we’re doing is providing an income stream that printers would not have had access to before, importantly, without tying up their cash. It really is that simple,” he added. The service is known internally as “printers’ webstores” and the first webstore is expected to go live in the coming days, although Carr declined to reveal the name of the first user. PaperlinX is currently also in advanced discussions with another six customers. In essence the service is a white label online storefront that printers can add to their websites. The storefronts will offer around 500 Paperlinx products, ranging from blank packaging, office paper, consumables and other media. “Everyone we’ve spoken to sees the value in it, because we’re all experiencing a decline in volumes. It’s a low cost, no risk opportunity and people get that,” said Carr. “It stems from us trying to develop initiatives to enable our customers to bolt on new revenue streams. Of course if it’s good for their business, it’s also good for us because it continues our evolution from simply being a supplier of paper,” added Carr. The webstores will be branded in line with the printer’s own branding. They will be full e-commerce enabled sites where customers can pay by credit card, although invoice options will also be available. Once placed, the orders will be delivered direct to the printer’s customers via Paperlinx’s 250-strong logistics fleet, based across DeliveryCo’s 24 distribution hubs. The products will be supplied at a fixed price, to ensure a common pricing structure, which will be set by Paperlinx across all printers’ webstores. Printers will then generate a pre-determined “healthy” commission based on order value, which will then be either paid directly to the printer or credited to their Paperlinx account. “It’s a simple value added service for the printer to their customers, it plays into our strengths of logistics and breadth of products. We as merchants should be helping our customers to offer solutions to their customers and this does exactly that, it really is a win-win for all concerned,” said Carr. The pilot “printers’ webstores” service will initially be offered to 50 pre-selected Paperlinx customers, but Carr said over time it would be opened up. In terms of initial set up costs to the printer, Carr described them as “minimal”, but he added that they would depend on a...