Based in Israel, Bar-Shany has been in the UK for a few days this week and as part of his schedule was keen to visit the Wakefield, Yorkshire-based printer, which operates two HP Indigo 12000s, the second of which went in three months ago, and an Indigo 7800.

In October 2019 Charlesworth came to an arrangement with its creditors to exit the CVA process it had entered in March 2016. The business has partially credited its turnaround to the growing demand it has experienced for its personalised children’s books offering.

Charlesworth managing director Mark Gray told Printweek: “Alon came to us because he’s been previously two years ago and he wanted to catch up with us and see where we’d gone with all of the new investment.

“He was really impressed with how we’ve evolved, how innovative we’ve been and how the automation has changed coming out of the CVA.

“His message throughout the visit was that what he’s seeing is that the people who are evolving are the ones who are surviving and the ones who are not are struggling and are not going to be around for much longer.

“He was really impressed with our personalised book production; not just the Indigos but also the finishing equipment that we’ve put in to complement the digital equipment. It’s all about the short-run book-of-one.”

The firm’s finishing line-up includes a Muller Martini Vareo perfect binder with inline InfiniTrim three-knife trimmer, an inline end papering unit, and a variable book-of-one PUR system, plus a DA 260 casemaker and a casing-in machine from Kolbus.

“The next step for us to introduce to our customers is some of HP’s innovations like UV inks, silvers and metallics,” said Charlesworth operations director Lee Hewitt.

Employing just over 50 staff, Charlesworth turns over around £6m and serves publishers including Wonderbly, Mrs Wordsmith and Hooray Heroes.