Lexon (GB) Ltd, which traded as Lexon Group, was based in Crumlin near Newport. It specialised in creative print services including packaging, exhibitions and displays, commercial print, and storage and fulfilment.
The family-owned business shut its doors on Tuesday (12 November), to the shock of employees and customers.
One Lexon customer told Printweek they had been left “stunned” at the news.
Lexon had sales of around £6m and employed more than 60 staff.
In a statement, group managing director Garth Davis said that the directors had sadly decided to close the company and enter into a creditors’ voluntary liquidation (CVL) process.
He said: “Our trading position has been made untenable by a slow squeeze from several positions. Repayment of finance from the effects of Covid, combined with a fourfold increase in energy costs in 2023 and the bad debt from the collapse of three print management companies resulted in us posting slightly unfavourable profit results last year.
“As a result, one of our major material suppliers decided to withdraw our credit line in August. Following that, another large paper merchant gave notice to the company that they were also cancelling any further credit facility from 20 November 2024.”
Davis said the business had also been hit by late payment.
“We have experienced significant delays to incoming payments from a print management company who exceeded an already generous 90 day agreed credit term which alarmed our bankers. The directors would urgently have needed to invest a significant sum to support this position.”
He said that measures announced in the recent budget and the upcoming increase in the National Minimum Wage had also influenced the decision to call it a day.
“When we considered several factors including the newly announced increase to NI employer contributions, increased minimum wage next year from our un-business friendly new government, and additional rises in line with this (estimated to be in excess of £100,000 per year for the company), it became clear that we would not be able to continue in profit,” Davis stated.
“At huge personal and financial loss to the Davis family, who have been running this incredibly diverse and innovative business since the 1970s, the only comfort is that many of our 60-plus devastated staff are already being offered employment in similar industries in the local area. Our thanks go to our loyal and talented team, many who have been with Lexon for decades.”
Lexon ran a wide range of kit including four- and five-colour B2 litho presses from Komori and Heidelberg, small-format digital, large-format digital including Epson, Screen and Mimaki devices, Thieme and Svecia screen printing presses, and a wide range of in-house post-press kit including stitching, perfect binding, cutting and creasing, carton gluer and window patcher, laminating and spot UV varnishing.
Back in 2017 the firm also installed Europe's first Komori Impremia IS29 B2 UV sheetfed inkjet press.
Lexon’s closure is a further blow to the printing industry in South Wales after Pontypridd’s DecTek and Big Bang went into liquidation in August.
