This afternoon (4 May) Walstead confirmed that it had bought the assets at Pindar and York Mailing, along with some of the kit from Chantry.
In a statement, chairman Mark Scanlon said: “On 4 May 2022 Walstead Group acquired all of the production assets of the insolvent YM Group companies at Scarborough and York and certain equipment at the Wakefield site.
“The presses will be used primarily at Walstead’s existing plants across Europe with some finishing equipment being utilised in the UK.
“We will consider the possibility of operating some equipment at one of these sites if there is sufficient demand from customers. The task now is to understand the market requirements for future volumes which cannot be produced in Walstead’s other UK facilities and whether any surplus would justify restarting additional capacity.”
No further information regarding the terms of the deal was available at the time of writing.
YM’s three web offset factories collapsed into administration on 31 March.
In the most recent results under YM, for the year to 31 May 2020, Pindar Scarborough had sales of £55.3m and made an operating profit prior to exceptionals of £613,000.
The site was YM’s biggest operation and employed 274 people at the time.
York Mailing had sales of just over £26m, and was YM’s most profitable business, making an operating profit of £2m. It employed 108 staff.
YM Chantry in Wakefield employed 236, had sales of £26.8m and made an operating loss of £1.9m.
Administrators from FRP Advisory were appointed at York Mailing, Pindar Scarborough and YM Chantry on 31 March, with most of the 512 staff made redundant immediately, and left without payment of their March wages and overtime.
A source close to the shuttered sites said: “Every day that goes by it gets more difficult to restart those factories. Lots of people have already found new jobs, but if you’re local to, say, Pindar, you’ll probably jump back in there.”
Another web offset watcher commented: “The tricky bit now for Walstead will be deciding what machines to put where.”
Walstead bosses had predicted during 2020 that more rivals would fail after government support schemes came to an end.
