The businesses will remain on their existing sites.
Kalamazoo, based in Redditch, specialises in a range of security print services including tickets and vouchers. Adare Limited is located near Huddersfield and provides print and electronic “essential communications” services. Its Park Mill facility produces around 1m mail packs a day for clients including financial services, retailers, utilities, and the public sector.
It also produces specialist printed matter required for elections, such as polling cards and ballot papers.
Adare said it would create a “single powerful business entity across two sites” with sales of around £60m.
It’s the first major change at the £170.8m turnover group since the “watershed” management buy-out deal last month.
Chief executive Robert Whiteside described it as a “logical step” after the two operations had “naturally gravitated towards each other”.
“We will continue to evolve the proposition which will require further investment in people, infrastructure and technology,” he said.
Whiteside also said that a dual-site capability was becoming a requirement for a significant number of the group’s existing customers. “Importantly it [the integration] will also enable the business to target further opportunities that a single-site operation would preclude us from,” he added.
The project to bring Kalamazoo and Adare Limited under one umbrella started earlier this week and is likely to take several months. As of 1 June Barry Crich, currently managing director of Adare Limited, will become managing director of both sites. Julian Coghlan, presently Kalamazoo managing director, will become group commercial director.
The two firms will also be united under a single name as part of the process, but the new name is still to be decided. “The integrated business will have a new name, and we are evaluating our options as part of the integration project,” said Adare Group head of marketing Luke Godfrey.
