Since then she has bought the assets of another failed business, XMedia Marketing, rolled the kit into the rebranded Kent business, Millnet Document Solutions, doubled the size of firm’s factory and taken on another unit on the industrial estate. Only pausing to negotiate, sign for and install two iGen 150s as part of a £700,000 kit spend.

So in 12 weeks she has created and re-equipped a circa £6m business. All of a sudden, her ambitions to create a £15m to £20m business in two years seem positively pedestrian by her standards.

Darryl Danielli The big question: what made you want to come back into print? Was it always the plan after leaving DST Output in 2012?

Yolanda Noble Not really. When I walked away I really thought that would be it. But you stay in touch with friends and clients in the industry. I did some business mentoring and had a cafe in Brighton, but I really missed print – the people and, well, I guess, doing something I really knew about. A couple of companies offered me non-exec roles and I just started thinking, maybe I should do it again – just smaller this time.

Had you made the decision to come back a long time before buying Print Logic out of administration then?

It was probably around September last year that I really decided. I joined Marcus (Craggs, founder of Millnet) in January in a consultancy role while we looked for an acquisition; it was a useful time insofar as getting to know his business better too.

But you haven’t bought into the London Millnet business.

No. Marcus is the main shareholder of Millnet and, in my past life, was a client for a number of years. We became friends, good business friends, and when my two-year non-compete expired he kept asking me to come and join them. So I did some consultancy work with Marcus, while also looking at lots of bigger businesses with some of the VCs and private equity houses, and Marcus just said why don’t we something together? It seemed like a good idea to me, to have the support of a very solid, credit-worthy business.

Did the VC/private equity option not really appeal then?

Yes it did, although probably private equity more than VC. It’s certainly something I would be interested in looking at in the future if a bigger business came up. But for a business of Print Logic’s size, and as a distressed purchase, those sorts of funds just weren’t necessary. Also, because of the nature of buying a distressed business, you really do need a solid business with a trading history behind you. 

You could have done it on your own though, weren’t you tempted?

I did think about it, but it’s a massive financial commitment on your own, and actually having the support of the Millnet team and Marcus in particular has been really good. To have another senior businessperson to talk to has been really helpful.

Everyone needs a sounding board.

You really do. It’s also quite difficult to do a receivership purchase without a solid company behind you. It doesn’t matter that people like me – that won’t make them give me credit. Why should they?

So what’s the plan? To create another £100m business?

There’s probably an optimum size if you’re looking at being a digital expert, if you like. The revenues are smaller, but the margins are better if you get it right and can add a bit more value to the work. Whatever happens, I certainly don’t want to be running a £100m business again.

It must be a culture shock in terms of going from a massive business to a much more modest one?

Yes, it’s a completely different set of challenges. It’s much more hands-on; you don’t have the same support systems that you have when you’re running a big business. But there’s also a lot more going out and seeing customers, which was what I always enjoyed most anyway.

I guess you lose touch in a bigger business too?

You do. Cash is king for any business, but in a big business you spend a huge chunk of your time looking after cashflow and managing staff. Whereas at MDS I can do that and still find time to see customers, look at trends and see where the industry is going and really listen to people inside and outside the business at all levels. That’s much nicer, and in a funny way running a small business can actually be more strategic than running a large one.

Has the industry changed much while you were away?

It really hasn’t. About half way through my first day here it was like I had never been away: the same challenges, the same opportunities. That said, there’s much more optimism now and banks are a little more supportive, and perhaps the opportunities are bigger.

So it’s a better time now?

I think so, it’s an exciting time and to come home now feels like perfect timing – certainly in terms of digital and how we’re going to adapt to that. It’s incredibly exciting.

It sounds like you’re in this for the long haul then?

I keep telling myself that I’m in this for five years, but I don’t know. I wouldn’t be coming back if I didn’t think there was some longevity here. Believe me, as much as I love the industry, I need to make sure the business works for me and my joint shareholder.

So what are your ambitions for the business then?

Firstly to stabilise it, and I think we’re already getting there. We need to build up our litho and DM work, but also we need to grow the digital part of the business. The ambition is to become a digital and cross-media business and be really expert at that.

Do you think that will be primarily through acquisitions?

I think organic growth and acquisitions, tactical acquisitions – a bit like we did with XMedia.

In terms of scale, what are you 

aiming for?

I would like to think that we could get to the £15m to £20m mark and make this a business that’s really good at what it does.

Is that the five-year target then?

I would like to think we would be there in nearer two years.

Wow! Okay, so this is probably the calm before the storm right now, then?

Hmm, I’m not sure it feels like that.

Do you have a defined plan though?

We want to build this business so that it creates value for the shareholders and security for the staff. I’ve never run a company as a lifestyle business and I don’t intend to start now. I want to get it to point where the business is recognised as being very good at what it does, perhaps one day it will get to the point when it’s attractive to somebody, perhaps an MBO team, or we just retire and run it from an armchair and take out some very nice dividends, although I very much doubt that. It’s too early to say, I just think we have an opportunity to create something really special here.

And then sell it for a fortune?

That would be nice.

Seriously though, do you have a very defined five-year business plan, or is it much more fluid than that?

No, we haven’t got a defined plan. How can you in a fast-evolving service industry like this? Right now everything is changing so quickly that we don’t know what’s coming around the corner, what the technology will enable us to deliver in five years or what services our clients might want from us in five years – there are so many variables that might change our ultimate focus that all we know for sure is that we want to build a secure platform for growth.

Doesn’t that make it difficult for your management team? Not necessarily knowing what’s going on in your head?

I don’t think so. They understand my vision for the business and I like to think that they know that we’re in for an exciting journey.

Fair enough. It’s just interesting that some industry leaders are very methodical in their planning and others are more reactive.

I’m not an accountant. I’ve always been about seizing opportunities. Of course, I’m very driven by numbers too, and I know don’t want to be in a business that is controlled by debt. But right now, being fleet of foot is a key attribute.

Do you miss running a big business though?

Yes and no. I miss the variety of running a big business and the diversity of the client base and the people, but I don’t miss that the fact that you can’t get as close to the business or the people or that you don’t have the same flexibility in terms of your own time. And I certainly don’t miss the extensive reporting.

I bet. But how did you come to be running a £100m business? How did it all start?

Right from the beginning? Really? Okay. Well, I started as a print sales rep at SR Communications, and that’s how I got into the industry. I then went to the London College of Printing for three years to learn about print management and estimating and things like that – I learned the industry there really. I then got headhunted to be sales director of another mailing house that is no longer around. It was around that time that my brother [Alastair Maclean] came and joined me straight after his A Levels. I was then approached by a couple of clients who suggested I set up on my own. We borrowed some money from our parents and then set up City Financial Mailing in 1989, then built that up to around £18m turnover.

You make it sound easy?

Well, no, but we benefitted from fortunate timing. We were essentially a corporate finance personalisation, mail and postage consolidator and there was so much activity in the early 1990s – takeover bids, report & accounts – it was really buoyant. We were then approached by Techmail in 1999, which later became Orchestra, and they did a BIMBO [buy-in management buy-out] and bought CFM from us. It was a good time to sell too, as my parents wanted to realise some capital, and my brother and I were just worn out. And it was a good offer, so we decided to go. Then in 2002 we were asked to buy it back again.

Could the new owners just not make it work?

You could say that – it was just about to go into receivership.

What was the problem? Market decline?

Partly perhaps. But I don’t think the new owners really understood the business or the industry at that time.

I guess you had built it as a very entrepreneurial business, so it was difficult to integrate?

It was entrepreneurial, but it was also a family business and the people were very important and I think that emphasis was lost. Barclays Private Equity had backed the BIMBO and they contacted us to see if we wanted to buy it back. And we did as CMM, but it was in a real mess.

On the bright side, I imagine you bought it back for a lot loss than you sold it for?

Yes we did, but that was just as well really, because we needed to pump a lot of money straight back into it to fix it. But we did build it up, and made several acquisitions.

So you hit the ground running then?

We did, but again it was a good time. We did four or five acquisitions in a short space of time and got it up to around £39m and then did the merger with Dsi.

Why did you want to merge?

We saw that our marketplace was changing and we realised that we needed to do something that was... well, I guess you could say cross-media. More customer-focused than just putting ink on paper and mailing it anyway. They were slightly bigger than us, perhaps £42m. So, between the four owners – myself, Alastair, Andy Young and Mark Felstead – we had an £80m business overnight, with all these sites scattered all over the place. Then just after the merger we bought K2 in Manchester, which was a big deal for us.

Without wishing to open up old wounds, I think you had a few issues there, didn’t you?

Yes we did. Great company though – £30m turnover. So all of a sudden we were getting towards £120m in a very short space of time.

Do you start to get almost nonchalant about the money involved in these deals, when perhaps the numbers you were talking about would have been terrifying just a few years earlier?

They would have been absolutely terrifying, but you’re right – after a while they just became numbers.

And I guess finance was free and easy back then too?

It was right up to just after the K2 deal in 2008.

So I imagine you had a highly geared business, just as the country walked into a banking crisis.

Yes, it was fairly highly geared and we had just started to build our supersite in Dagenham. The rationale behind that one big site was to close some of the smaller operations and move them in and start to benefit from the improved productivity. It was clearly the best thing to do and made absolute sense.

But perhaps not the best timing?

It was when we had the idea and none of us could have seen what was coming. Unfortunately for us we were also banking with RBS at the time.

Ouch.

It wasn’t brilliant, no. We had only just taken on the new site as a shell in Dagenham, so you could say it was a particularly challenging time.

What did you learn from that?

That you need a crystal ball to work out what the banks are doing before you decide to build a 17,000m² factory... I think I learned that it’s very easy to get carried away with the quest of building a business quickly. Nowadays I’m much more cautious.

Really? Building a £20m firm in two years doesn’t sound overly cautious?

True. Perhaps ‘considered’ is a better word. I certainly reflect a little more these days.

But then it would be easy to go too far in the other direction, and it seems that after the past few years, while there are a lot of businesses seizing opportunities and investing or acquiring, there are still a lot that are perhaps being overly cautious.

I think you’re right. If you’re running any business you have to be constantly looking for growth, because attrition happens naturally and in any sector you can lose a big contract or big client for whatever reason. And if you haven’t grown or haven’t been constantly hunting for new customers or new business or opportunities, then you’re just going to wither on the vine. Overheads don’t go away overnight if you need to scale a business down. You have to keep hunting.

Does that mean you have to second-guess where the market is going?

It’s not about second-guessing the market, its about keeping tabs on the opportunities. The industry is changing rapidly, so you have to be prepared to move quickly, and there are some good firms doing just that.

Which companies do you admire?

Communisis and Real Digital are great businesses.

What about individuals?

I really like what Andy Blundell has done at Communisis; he’s steered them through a lot of change, made lots of good acquisitions, made some tough decisions, but turned the business around.

You mentioned Real Digital too, their model is different in that they effectively created a business from a blank sheet of paper. Do you think that’s easier than your approach?

I think starting from scratch is a much bigger drain financially. But distressed deals also have big challenges, not least of which is turning the customers’ focus from what happened in the past to what’s happening now – it sometimes takes a while to lose that baggage.

I guess the same is true for the people in the business too?

Absolutely. The people here have had a very rough time, and we’ve tried to make that better by doing the right thing financially. Hopefully they can see what we’re trying to do with the business and they can see that it’s progressing. They can see new work coming in and that we’re putting things right by investing in the business. Often it’s doing the simple things that make a difference though, like putting proper HR procedures in place, and training. Things like that remind people how important they are to the business and that they’re part of a team that is going somewhere. That’s one of the things that you learn from a big business: that you have to do everything properly, with proper procedures. 

How are you going to achieve the growth you’re looking for? Distress buys, solvent buys or organic growth?

Well, we’re not going to target any more distress sales for a while, but never say never, I guess. We’ll look at what opportunities are out there and if the fit is right – the right business, the right clients and right people. One thing is certain: we’re not going to be able to fit another business in this site. We’re not going to do more than £6m or £7m here, and we’re not far off that now. So whatever we look at needs to be something that my management team here can manage, and what I don’t want is to be driving halfway across the country every day again.

But then are you looking for something that mirrors the MDS operation, or something different but complementary?

I think more likely the latter, but it would have to be stable and have some contractual work, like we have here, but be digital and cross-media focused. I don’t think we’ll look at traditional print and direct mail. There are thousands of other people out there doing that.

What’s the most important thing when looking at an acquisition?

A combination of customers and the people – probably the most important though is the people. If we’re going in, we can’t run that business full-time – if it’s a going concern deal it has to have a good management team – because it has to be business as usual. If it’s a distress sale, it’s slightly different because you don’t really want business as usual, obviously.

Have you developed a sixth sense when it comes to acquisitions? Because you’ve done a fair few in your time.

You get a feel for it, yes. We did do a lot of acquisitions in the CMM and DsiCMM days – some good, some bad, some distressed, some going concern. And you’re right: over time you do develop a feel for the deals that will work.

Is there anything that you’ve learned in that time?

The importance of good due diligence. Financial due diligence is a given, especially if finance is involved, but you can never spend enough time on the commercial due diligence.

Anything else?

Always, always, always stay on top of your cash position; don’t run your business as a lifestyle business and don’t let your heart rule your head.

Has that happened then?

I think in the past, I might have been guilty of looking at acquisitions and perhaps on occasion getting wrapped up in the excitement of it, only later realising that perhaps it wasn’t the best thing to do or the best deal.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently in your career?

Well, I wish we had done due diligence before we bought CFM back from Barclays.

You didn’t do any due diligence?

We weren’t allowed to. They just said we had to move quickly and what could possibly have gone wrong in the two years they had owned it. As it turned out, quite a lot. On day one, within two hours the biggest client resigned and it was £1m deeper underwater than we thought. So the best piece of advice I can offer to anyone looking to buy a business is always do your due diligence, no matter how well you think you know a company.

Presumably you don’t bank with Barclays these days?

Erm, no!