The company has also installed a new five-colour Heidelberg XL 106 5 plus coater and new MBO folder, and is about to sign for a new Tharstern MIS system. The company also anticipates installing a new Heidelberg workflow system in around six months, bringing this investment phase’s total spend to around £2m.
The aim is to boost turnover from just over £5m at the end of 2013 to £8m within the next two years. “That’s a realistic target for us,” said James Cuthbert, who was recently promoted to managing director, with Bruce Cuthbert moving to executive chairman, Bill Kelleway becoming operations director and Chris Hilleard production director.
The change of FM Print’s trading name to Elle Media Group is designed to bring the print side of the company inline with its other greetings card publishing and design arms, Elle Publishing, acquired in 2010, and Elle Creative, established in 2011.
“We wanted to keep the Elle Publishing name because that was a strong name in the market so it made no sense to lose it,” said Cuthbert. “But that became very confusing when you were talking to people about new business.”
Switching trading names will allow the company to capitalise on the well-known Elle Publishing brand by branching further into design and print work for charities, explained Cuthbert. “We’re looking to grow our existing charity client base. Not just doing the greetings cards for them but also graphic design and other forms of print. And we’re looking to work for more charities,” he said.
The new Heidelberg XL 106 5, which replaced a ten-colour Komori Lithrone LS1029P B2 press, will also allow the company to branch into more retail and POS work. “Historically we’ve been a perfecting house, but the new machine will allow us to branch into single side work like posters and show cards,” said Cuthbert.
He added: “We can now have technology-led pricing. The new press is state of the art. The speeds it runs at and the make ready times it achieves just make it so efficient. The older presses just can’t compete with that.”
Currently the Elle Media Group’s three arms report turnover as one, with 75% generated by FM Print, 20% by Elle Publishing and 5% by Elle Creative. “When we get to a certain level we’ll probably look to split them out but we have no plans to do that at the moment,” said Cuthbert, saying he anticipated the split in terms of how much each part generates, to remain much the same.
Elle Media Group remains Falder Matthews Ltd as a legal entity, though Cuthbert said this may change in future.
