Click on the links to see what happened to whom in each month:

January 2008

February 2008

March 2008

April 2008

May 2008

June 2008

July 2008

August 2008

September 2008

October 2008

November 2008

December 2008


January 2008
Quebecor World was given two weeks to raise £63m, having been thrown a lifeline by its lenders. It then pulled the plug on its only UK operation in Corby and gained Chapter 11 creditor protection in the US… Media and Print Investments (MPI), the private equity-backed group run by Mike Dolan, kicked off 2008 with the acquisition of B1 and digital printer Goodman Baylis… MPG Books was looking to move into true print-on-demand after managing director Tony Chards finally secured his much-anticipated MBO… Direct mail firm Mailcom eyed new markets after buying four Océ VarioStream 8650s as part of a £4m investment programme… Target Direct Print, the print and campaign management company, rebranded itself as Lightsource…Charterhouse was on the hunt for acquisitions after selling a 20% stake to Bank of Scotland Integrated Finance… Newsquest was set to close its Newport printing plant following a review of its Wales and Gloucestershire sites…Packaging’s biggest names went through a week of consolidation after Chesapeake rebranded and sold a plant to Mayr-Melnhof, while Macfarlane Group agreed to buy £7.5m-turnover Gloucester-based distribution business Online Packaging… Cambridge University Press installed the UK’s first Manroland 900XXL, rounding off a major revamp of its press hall… An MBO took place at commercial and magazine printer Mannin Media Group… Academy Print Solutions was saved from closure at the eleventh hour when its sales and production managers bought the B1 printer out of administration… More than 380 jobs were at risk following the proposed closures of print facilities at Polestar Greaves and Trader Media Group subsidiary Wiltshires… MBA saved direct mail specialist SR Communications from administration and created one of the largest print and DM companies in the UK with an estimated £40m annual turnover… BemroseBooth, the security printer, was put up for sale by its owner, US packaging giant Appleton…

February 2008
Quebecor World’s site in Corby was closed after administrators failed to find a buyer, with BGP, St Ives and Polestar picking up the main work from the business… Barclaycard announced it was to close its Northampton statement and credit card production site, with the loss of 160 jobs… Paper prices were set to rise with merchants warning customers to expect an 8% hike…TPF Group confirmed it had entered into a 30-day consultation period with staff over a number of redundancies across the business…

March 2008
Beswick Paper made a surprise £19m swoop for fellow merchant Premier Paper Group. The move came about after the European competition authorities ruled that Antalis needed to sell Premier to complete its acquisition of Map Merchant Group… Stewarts of Edinburgh was eyeing up potential acquisitions after moving to a new site four years after an MBO… PaperCo announced new price rises of 4-8% on all its paper products… Sainsbury’s was on the verge of launching its first major print tender since 2005… HH Associates opened its first US site… Bezier expanded into Europe following the acquisition of Coutts Retail Communications… Direct mail house 4DM boosted its turnover and services after buying marketing agency Direct Link… Whitehill Publishing bought The Nelson Press (Southampton) for an undisclosed sum… Packaging giant DS Smith expanded into the point-of-sale market, snapping up Multigraphics… Tangent Communications lined up a £27.5m purchase for TMN, an online direct marketing group…

April 2008
The axe was hanging over Butler and Tanner after owner Mike Dolan threatened to close the book printer if a strike went ahead. The dispute escalated after Dolan claimed there was election fraud in an initial vote for industrial action… AccessPlus was poised to become the print management division of Office2Office after the stationery supplier made a £26m bid for the firm… RR Donnelley was rumoured to be on the lookout for buyers of its UK business process outsourcing arm Global Document Solutions… TPF Group claimed it had landed more than £85m worth of business since the start of 2008, bringing to a close the company’s best ever quarter…

May 2008
The Butler and Tanner saga rumbled on after former director Kevin Sarney made a bid for the business following Mike Dolan’s decision to close the company. Dolan shut the Frome book printer after Unite refused to back down over strike action… Sherwood Press and Loxleys formed a £15m strategic alliance… Corporate insolvencies across the UK rose to their highest levels since the dot-com crash, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers… Etrinsic was sold to US print management firm InnerWorkings… Administrators for the company previously known as Abbey Green Repro called for an urgent investigation into dealings at the company… Nevisprint, the Highland’s largest print company, closed with the loss of 43 jobs and Scottish printers in general were facing the toughest market conditions in their 500-year history… CPI Antony Rowe won the contract to partner Faber & Faber in the publisher’s new on-demand book-printing initiative… Polestar was pitching to hold onto its £18m print work for IPC Media, after the publisher put its biggest titles out to tender, and announced that it had clinched a three-year deal with Guardian News and Media…

June 2008
St Ives emerged as the surprise winner of the Sainsbury’s multimillion-pound print management contract… As a result, large-format printer Simpson Group was bracing itself for job cuts after its client, Communisis, lost the Sainsbury’s contract to St Ives… St Ives’ Brian Edwards rose to number one in PrintWeek’s Power 100… HH Associates secured a £12.5m refinancing package with Venture Structured Finance… Océ landed a £40m, five-year print management contract with Cambridge Assessment… Label printer Buckleys Print and Packaging went into administration for the second time in eight months. Tipografic Print Solutions bought the firm, creating a packaging print group with sales of £9m… HHBV acquired the European assets of Quebecor World… News International closed its loss-making magazine publisher News Magazines only three years after the division was formed… De La Rue sold its cash systems division to US private equity firm The Carlyle Group. It also confirmed that it was considering bidding for a passport production contract worth £700m… Polar Print Group fell into administration following prolonged trading difficulties… Turning Point Innovation was on the verge of a dramatic rescue after its administrator was in advanced discussions with a potential suitor… Bezier axed its creative agency Poulters as part of a group restructure…

July 2008
Felix Dennis was hailed as the saviour of Butler and Tanner after stepping in to support Kevin Sarney’s £500,000 eleventh-hour bid to save the book printer… Large-format printer Capital Print & Display went into administration… Proskills secured £62m worth of government money, print’s biggest training boost in years… TPF Group lost its £2.5m transactional mail contract with Sky, but kept its print management role… Communisis won a print management contract with coffee chain Starbucks and clinched a direct mail deal with the Woodland Trust. It also secured a £12.8m sale of its Bath Business Forms to an MBO team… Pindar disposed of its directory repro division, Pindar Set, to Yell. But it acquired a stake in Wren Press Stationers, which it merged with Barnard & Westwood… Merchant giant PaperlinX underwent a major reshuffle with a change in its managing directors at its UK operations Robert Horne and PaperCo…Printing of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph was set to begin its long-awaited move to News International’s print sites… Nampak placed 125 jobs at risk after announcing it was considering the future of its Crewkerne factory and reorganising administrative roles at its Gillingham site…Unite and the United Steelworkers Union signed a merger agreement creating a new global ‘super union’ representing 3m workers… Newly rebranded Butler, Tanner & Dennis was aiming to promote its green credentials to win business from UK publishers… Packaging pre-press specialist Schawk was to close its Leeds site with the loss of 50 jobs… Bezier announced it was to merge its recently acquired Coutts Retail Communications and Bluetouch… Kall Kwik was locked in a bitter dispute with the Independent Kall Kwik Franchise Owners Association… UK envelope manufacturers were lining up to contest a production and printer tender launched by the DVLA… Heidelberg’s German headquarters announced plans to cut 500 jobs…

August 2008
Independent paper manufacturer Curtis Fine Papers fell into administration resulting in the loss of 180 jobs… TPF Group lost its primary source print management contract with Sky, believed to be worth around £25m a year… Reed Print & Design went into administration following the collapse of a deal to sell its factory… Pindar sold off its website programming company Screen Pages to an MBO team… Tangent Communications was preparing itself for a decline in profits due to a deterioration in the property market… Some of Europe’s largest paper manufacturers posted weak second-quarter profits due to the rising costs of raw material and a strong euro… Direct mail company Colin Clapp DM and sister firm LDH Mailing fell into administration and were eventually wound down… Polestar announced plans to close its Greaves bindery operation, a few months after it ceased printing at the site, with the potential loss of 190 jobs… Scottish firm Beith Printing went into receivership with the loss of 45 jobs… Book printer CPI Mackays underwent a £6m investment aimed at improving performance… Heidelberg suffered a loss in the first quarter of the financial year… Time ran out for Heanorgate to find a buyer as the Derbyshire-based firm closed its doors… BPMG was bought out of administration by Duncan Print Group… Sun Chemical announced a 5-20% price hike for commercial and packaging inks… Impress Digital and Eaton Press Print merged to create the Icon Print Group… PaperlinX announced paper price increases of between 6% and 11%, blaming rising raw material and energy costs… Waddington & Ledger announced 37 jobs were to go… A host of print management firms were tendering for a bumper contract from Barclays…

September 2008
Investment vehicle HS Printers emerged as the surprise buyer of the operating companies of the beleaguered MPI in a pre-pack administration deal for Borcombe SP and Goodman Baylis… Heidelberg announced plans to close its Leeds site next year with the loss of 20 jobs, part of a UK-wide restructuring programme… HH Associates signed a three-year extension to its InterContinental Hotels contract worth £18m… Print veteran Terry Brady stepped down as managing director of Alito Colour Group, as he prepared to leave the industry…More than 3,300 European paper manufacturing jobs were at risk after UPM and Stora Enso announced mill closures… Polestar won a share of a £150m contract to support the delivery of the 2011 Census for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It also secured a five-year £100m contract extension with publisher IPC… Ricoh purchased office equipment distributor Ikon Office Solutions for £800m… Taylor Bloxham defied the economic slowdown with a £1.5m investment in pre-press, press and finishing equipment… Communisis posted a 92% increase in profits in its interim results for the first six months… Almost 200 newspaper printing jobs were set to be lost following the announcement of potential plant closures by Trinity Mirror and Newsquest… VCS Abbotts Creative Print was sold out of administration to newly-formed company TWRM Print… Clothing retailer Next announced it would bring its print management in-house, ending a nine-year association with Internext Associates… ImageData Group was targeting steady growth following the completion of a £6m investment in a facility in East Yorkshire…

October 2008
Wyndeham Press Group said that it would continue to operate normally, despite the collapse of its leading lender Landsbanki, which was later nationalised… Cooper Clegg was up for sale just 18 months after Pindar bought the magazine printing arm. The latter cited unsustainable pricing and rising costs for its decision to exit the magazine market… The Scottish paper industry was dealt another blow after International Paper UK announced its Inverurie mill faced closure with the loss of 371 jobs… York Mailing scooped PrintWeek’s Printing Company of the Year Award… Dsicmm continued its rapid expansion with the opening of a new £10m site… Howitt formally joined its direct mail print company with its three sister companies to create the Lateral Group… Tipographic Print Solutions, previously Buckley Print & Packaging, was on the verge of liquidation… CPI chief executive Timothy Bovard quit the company he co-founded in 1996… Cambrian Printers completed a £6m four-year investment programme with the purchase of a KBA long perfector… Future Publishing decided to move a clutch of its titles to Polestar and William Gibbons, which sparked off a bitter war of words over printing… DSR Print Management’s business and assets were bought by the company’s owners in a controversial pre-pack deal… MSO Cartonmaster was put into administration… Print management company TD Gorman ceased trading…

November 2008
Cooper Clegg was sold to a buy-in management buyout (BIMBO) team led by John Wood… HS Printers put Goodman Baylis into administration after six weeks, while Borcombe SP was bought in a pre-pack administration deal by Datateam Publishing shortly afterwards … GI Solutions was bought out by private equity investor Grove Industries… MetalFX was to be wound down after parent company Ciba Speciality Coatings decided the business did not fit in with its core operations… Stephan Krauss stepped down as chief executive of Prinovis… Printing.com improved its turnover and pre-tax profits… Impress (Leicester) went into administration… Nampak invested £4m in its Leeds site… Heidelberg announced it was to shed 2,500 jobs worldwide... MPG Books bought the assets and business of Biddles out of administration for an undisclosed amount, saving all 93 jobs at the book printer...

December 2008
Wyndeham Press Group (WPG) is sold to Walstead Investments, and a consultation over the future of 163 staff at its Heron arm begins… Magazine printer Cooper Clegg went into administration weeks after a management buyout... Staff at Borcombe SP faced a bleak Christmas as the company looked set for liquidation... 175-year-old commercial and book printer Alden Hendi Group went into administration, and administrator KPMG made 135 staff redundant at the company's London and Witney sites… Polestar reduced its debt in a surprise debt-for-equity swap – its second in two years… but Polestar Petty announced a consultation with staff over 52 job cuts at its Leeds site… Communisis secured a £20m finance deal with Lloyds TSB and bought data service company Ai... CPI enters into consultation with its Mackays subsidiary, with a view to making 70 redundancies… Newsquest, which closed its Colchester site in September, announced a consultation with staff to close its Bolton facility… Dsicmm beat off some tough competition to take pole position in the PrintWeek direct mail league table… while De La Rue held on to the top spot in this year's PrintWeek Top 500… Simpson Group defends its staff consultation at Realisis, risking 96 jobs, saying it is the only way to keep the business profitable… B1 and B2 printer Paperstyle closed its doors, making 20 staff redundant… Sappi puts up its prices for coated fine and mechanical coated grade papers by 8-10% as of 1 January… Domino Printing Sciences announces record revenue of £250m… Green printer Colour Works went into voluntary liquidation, making 17 staff redundant… Reed Elsevier abandoned plans to sell its trade mag arm, Reed Business Information (RBI)... Haynes Publishing Group received a bid from JF Print Ltd for its UK book manufacturing business… Diamond Envelopes announced job cuts as it closes its Dyce, Aberdeenshire site… Adobe said it will axe 600 jobs worldwide…