The Wyndeham Group owner announced that sales in the year to 31 December 2012 were down 2.5% to £124.8m, but EBITDA more than doubled to £11.1m (2011: £4.9m), giving a margin of 8.9%.

The EBITDA figure does not include a £2.3m insurance payout, received as a result of the fire that wiped out a Lithoman IV at Heron in the summer of 2011.

Scanlon also highlighted the group’s improved balance sheet, with net debt reduced from £36.1m to £29.4m, and a new, three-year facility in place with Royal Bank of Scotland providing "ample working capital".

The group even won praise from its bank. Kevin Haupert, RBS Invoice Finance head of asset based lending and syndications, said: "We are extremely happy with our relationship with Walstead. The new £30.4m facility we put in place last November underlines the bank’s commitment to British industry and to the printing sector in particular.

"Since then Walstead has continued to meet its targets with us and has improved its market position. We look forward to seeing further progress in the current year."

Walstead’s 2011 loss of £20.9m was eliminated, with the firm posting a pre-tax profit of £3.7m, after exceptional charges of £4.3m.

Scanlon described the turnaround as "excellent progress", following a period of extensive restructuring that involved the closure of the Plymouth, Impact and Apple web offset sites in 2011 and changes to terms and conditions and working practices across the business.

He said the group had improved productivity in the face of declining volumes, static prices and a volatile commercial market.

"We are anticipating falling demand. If the market is static or picks up we’d be delighted, but we’re being prudent," he said. "The key thing now is paying down the debt and managing cashflow."
The business also expects to begin paying back the £14.6m owed to Walstead’s founding shareholders later this year.

Wyndeham is now the second-biggest web offset group in the UK, following its own restructuring and Polestar’s purchase of the Goodhead business last November.

Referring to Goodhead’s failure, and Polestar’s recently announced plans for a £50m re-equipping of its web offset platform, Scanlon said: "Extravagant capital expenditure is no substitute for hard work and sound management. Goodhead’s insolvency demonstrates that in the end the economics of profit and loss will prevail.

"If we were in Polestar’s position then we’d probably do that [reinvest] too. However, the kit we’d be buying would be configured to meet the demands of the future, not today," he added.

"You need to build in flexibility. If Barry’s planning that, great. If he’s gearing up thinking today’s market will be there in three-to-four years, then they’ll have too much capacity."

As well as its four main web offset sites Peterborough, Roche, Heron and Southernprint, Wyndeham Group includes sheetfed printers Grange and Gait, and continuous stationery specialist Print Direct.

Walstead also owns premedia business Rhapsody Media. Scanlon said the other businesses were making "steady progress".