He is in talks about the sale of the firm with one interested party in particular. This party was from outside of the present business, he added, and was not connected to Perivan London, which was spun off by the group earlier this year and is separately funded and trading profitably.
The company had found it difficult to recover from a 2.4m deficit in its final salary pension scheme. It had been paying in 410,000 a year to keep the pension fund afloat, and had closed it to new entrants three years ago.
Although Hood stressed that pre-emptive measures had been taken early on, the problem had escalated over the past two years.
The news surprised rivals and clients. One corporate print buyer said: This is a real shock. I feel very sad for the people there.
Perivan White Dove has also cancelled the order for a new 10-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster perfector that it announced last month (PrintWeek, 23 October).
Perivan White Dove has sales of around 9m and is the sole trading division of Perivan Group, which posted sales of 17.7m in 2002.
Perivan bought Southend-on-Seas White Dove Press in 2001, closing its factory a year later to merge it into its own operations.
It appointed Mark Croucher, formerly managing director at rival St Ives Westerham Press, as its new managing director in October 2002 and a number of his former St Ives colleagues followed him to Leigh-on-Sea. Croucher is still at the firm but has resigned as a director.
Story by Andy Scott
