Last year the company Llewellyn is managing director of, Telford Reprographics, bought a nearby foil printing business to fill that latest void. It was an opportunistic purchase but helped to achieve Llewellyn’s ambitions of building a one-stop service.
The challenge
“We’ve been in existence 22 years and have never done litho work,” he explains. “Even back then, we realised the future was short-run work – clients want less of it but more frequently. We had most of the equipment to be a one-stop shop – digital, wide-format machines and host of finishing kit.”
Most but not all: Telford Reprographics was the first company in the town to offer a fast-response service that started as a photocopying bureau for black-and-white plans and architects’ drawings in the mid 1990s. It was a good time and place to fill that particular gap. Like Milton Keynes, Telford is a new town and serving all those fledgling businesses threw up a lot of opportunities.
As digital took off, so did Telford Reprographics, buying Konica Minolta presses and wide-format kit to “fill more voids” in copying and printing requirements, recalls Llewellyn. The firm pulled through two recessions “relatively unscathed” thanks to the market it serves and its ability to thump out work of high quality and at high speed. But Llewellyn could see another sinkhole in which to fall unless he moved once again to fill the gap.
“If you offer a quick-response service and want to be a one-stop shop you don’t have the luxury of being able to farm anything out because turnaround needs to be so fast. You have to be able to do everything under one roof: all the printing and all the finishing services attached to that print. Yet we were spending about £5,000 a year outsourcing foiling work – not huge amounts, but significant.”
Opportunity came ringing in the form of Ray Tranter who ran Telford Foil Print two miles away. Like Telford Reprographics, this was a well-established company, offering all manner of different types of foiling including copper, gold, silver, grey, black, white and a host of colours such as red and blue. But unlike 68-year-old workaholic Llewellyn, Tranter was keen to retire.
The method
“It was a speculative call from Ray, saying who he was, what he did and why he wanted to sell. I didn’t give it much thought but over the coming months we talked about how foiling could slot into our existing services. Last September we came to an agreement to take over the company.”
Telford Foil Print was compact, just Tranter and one member of staff running three hefty Marshall hand-operated foiling machines for high-end clients, such as concierge companies, restaurants and diplomatic services, most of them based in London. What made it stand out was a well-designed website that pulled in enough work to squeeze out a tidy annual turnover of £120,000.
Those three Marshalls swallowed up space, but fortunately Llewellyn had recently expanded his purpose-built facility from 325m2 to 465m2 to accommodate three new upgraded Konica Minolta machines and create bigger staffroom facilities. A little tweaking here and there could free up enough room for the new kit and a few workbenches.
“Telford Foil Print was also clean – in that there was very little due diligence required – so the deal went through smoothly. The whole transaction including the move took two months and the only experts involved were our accountants and solicitors.”
When it came to moving kit and caboodle, Telford Reprographics used its fleet of vans to shift all the machines on a Saturday. Though chunky, each machine could be shifted by two men without need for lifting kit. By close of play on Sunday the Marshalls were installed and by Monday, the new-look one-stop shop was ready for business.
“Punching individual cards with the Marshall kit is labour intensive and the machinery can’t foil anything larger than A5. But 75% of our work is business cards and we saw potential to add foiling there. We also saw opportunities to foil corporate invitations and vouchers for Telford Foil Print’s clients while introducing more foiling options to our own existing customers.”
The result
Llewellyn paid £50,000 from the company’s own funds for the foiling business in a deal where Tranter agreed to stay for six weeks to help train staff in the art of foiling. Part of the company’s success, he explains, is down to the fact that it has always reinvested, and is largely lease free and debt free. This, he says, “makes life that much easier”.
In its first eight months, the foiling operation has made £160,000 turnover. This is £40,000 more than Telford Foil Print made in its last year and represents a jump in business of about 30%.
The foiling is run as part of Telford Reprographics; the only throwback to the company from which it sprang is its highly successful website. Llewellyn was smart enough not to risk killing the goose that lays the golden Google eggs by tampering with the site too much.
“The website is still in existence; we didn’t want to mess around with something that worked well, and were sensitive that the sudden integration of a new company into ours could throw up problems. So we have largely left the website as it was and updated it just a little to reflect the overall Telford Reprographics’ brand.
“A third of our business comes via the internet and this will inevitably grow in years to come, so having the best online presence can only help.”
Overall turnover is also on the up: Llewellyn had targeted £850,000 for this year but the addition of foiling will ensure “we will surpass that and hopefully touch the £1m mark”. To help deal with the increasing workloads, an extra member of staff has been taken on to join Tranter’s colleague who stayed after his former boss’s six weeks were up.
Meanwhile Llewellyn is building momentum; last month he called on his in-house graphic design team to roll out a new corporate identity for the business, and last week he installed a new Duplo DC-616 slitter-cutter-creaser that can take an SRA3 sheet at one end and deliver business card-sized work at the other. He might even consider another company takeover.
“Since the acquisition I’ve had a couple of speculative enquiries from people asking if I want to buy their companies. They were not appropriate, but who knows? If the right opportunity came up, I might be tempted to acquire once more. I’m 68 years old, have no plans to retire and am excited about the future. My son Alex joined the company four years ago and hopefully, in the fullness of time, he will run the business. So we have a succession plan in place, just as we have in place the ambition to grow the company and take on new skills and technology where necessary.”
VITAL STATISTICS
Telford Reprographics
Location Telford, Shropshire
Inspection host Managing director, Peter Llewellyn
Size Turnover: £850,000; Staff: 12
Established 1994
Products Posters, leaflets, business cards, invitations, vouchers, POS and exhibition material, banners and displays.
Kit Three Konica Minolta bizhub C1060s and three wide-format Epson 9800s, Duplo DBM-150 bookletmaker, Duplo DSF-2200 sheet feeder and Duplo DC-616 slitter-cutter-creaser
Inspection focus Acquiring a new skill
TOP TIPS
Research “The secret of success for acquiring a new skill or company is research to ensure it slots in and builds on your existing business,” says Llewellyn.
Instinct Follow it: “Though I know next to nothing about foiling, it felt right for the business and I felt comfortable taking it on despite my lack of knowledge.”
Training “As you take on new skills you need to take on new staff and train them up; we have an active apprenticeship scheme and recruit every year to build and bolster new skills.”
Growth Acquisition of another business or skill to bolster an existing company can be a fast, efficient way of achieving business growth - “if done correctly”, cautions Llewellyn.
Dilligence Make sure you plan adequately - don’t set an overly aggressive timetable to acquire a new skill or company and look at possible integration challenges.
Strategy The proper execution of most deals start with strategy, according to Llewellyn, in terms of service, product, market, geography and competitive perspectives.
