Menzies was appointed administrator to the Clerkenwell firm 1st Byte last Friday (30 October).
In an email to clients yesterday, managing director Lawrence Dalton said that the directors had been forced to call in the administrators after “two very slow months” over the summer.
“As good and as clever [as] 1st Byte has been in building a reputation for quality digital printing, alongside meeting extremely tight deadlines, the amount of continual investment in print technologies whilst retaining a large and highly skilled workforce to achieve these targets has always been precarious.”
PrintWeek understands that Dalton had been attempting to find a buyer for the business over the past few months, but to no avail.
The business employed circa 40 staff and had sales of around £4m, which included sales of £1m from its standalone online business card printing operation Press4Print.
1st Byte was formed by Dalton, production director Tony Anderson and estimating and print director Stuart Williams in 1997 and was one of the early adopters of HP Indigo technology. It also installed one of the UK's first Scodix S75 digital embossing lines in December 2013 on a trial basis, although PrintWeek understands that the Scodix was returned earlier this year.
According to Dalton’s email 1st Byte’s work in progress will be completed over the next few weeks.
Separately, Rapidity has acquired the 1st Byte’s Press4Print business card operation, which was not placed in administration, and taken on Press4Print's four staff.
“Press4Print is a totally separate business, so we jumped in and bought that when we heard about the sad situation at 1st Byte, because that [Press4Print] really suits us and we’ve [separately] taken on some staff because they had some great people, with some great skills and are based in the same postcode,” said Rapidity managing director Paul Manning.
Rapidity has recruited 15 of 1st Byte’s key office and factory staff.
“There were too many similarities to miss the opportunity,” said Manning.
“They were in EC1, we’re in EC1; they ran Indigos, we run Indigos, and at this rate I genuinely think we might be the last commercial printer in central London. But I must stress that we haven’t bought 1st Byte or done a deal with the administrators, we’ve literally just employed people who were looking for jobs.”
Rapidity has also bought some of 1st Byte’s IP, such as websites and domain names, and certain finishing kit from the administrators.
While Manning said Rapidity is in a very fortunate position regarding its own lease, he questioned how long true commercial print could survive in central London, with its spiralling rents, although PrintWeek understands that 1st Byte’s premises were separately owned by the 1st Byte directors.
