Infinity Partnership co-directors Ian Simkins and Mark Winn signed a £500,000 agreement in March to acquire Andrews Direct Mail Finishers (ADMF), the direct mailing business of Andrews Print Finishing (APF) that fell into administration in 2011, from owner Paul Booroff.

With backing from Paragon Bank the Chessington-based company has taken on ADMF's 790sqm facility in Iver, Buckinghamshire along with its six employees and has added a new wire-binding service, along with four new staff members, to its existing DM activities. One of the original founders of APF, Terry Goddard, has also been brought on board as sales manager. 

Simkins said: "He's a real industry expert and we're lucky to have him with us."

Simkins, who was production manager at APF until its demise, said: "We've grown to our capacity in Chessington so we can't do anything else there. ADMF offers us the scope to do direct mailing, which we've not done before and it also had a huge amount of wasted space so we have the chance to add something.

"We do PUR and perfect binding at Infinity Partnership already and we wanted to do something similar but be very specialised, so we went for wire-binding," he added.

Simkins explained that while he was considering entering the wire-binding market, Croydon binding firm, Dash, fell into administration. "It was very timely because it freed up a lot of business for us, so we now have a thriving business in direct marketing and wire. It's another string to our bow," he said.

To add to an existing guillotine and three Hunkeler Mailers for special products such credit card fixing and inserts at ADMF, Infinity's owners have invested £150,000 in a raft of equipment from a range of suppliers and manufacturers to get the wire-binding business off the ground.

The list includes: a 30-station Setmaster collator, a Rilecart B599 automatic wire-binding machine, a Rilecart TP480 semi-automatic wire-binding machine, two Renz P500 heavy duty punches, two PDC spiral binding machines and a Rilecart 5/55 automatic punching machine.

Simkins said he anticipated moving from a day shift pattern to a 24hr shift pattern at Andrews Infinity, as they have at Chessington, within the next few months and intended to take on four or five new staff. He hoped to achieve a turnover of more than £800,000 in the next year, he said, which would more than double the group's turnover. 

"There's no reason we can't achieve that but in this industry it's quite tough and with the in/out referendum it's hard to know what the future holds."

Simkins added that the company is in the process of achieving standards ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 for both sites.

"We have improved customer service and quality already," he said. "What we are focusing on right now is giving the customers what they want, that's really our priority.

"Making sure they keep coming back by making sure we are really helping them to get the right products and helping them understand what they might need.

"We want to attract new customers and not just rely on a few big ones. It leaves you very exposed. I've learned that and that's what we want to focus on."

Meanwhile, Simkins said the 600sqm Chessington operation was going from strength to strength, having doubled staff numbers to 12 since starting up in 2013 and achieving a turnover of £700,000. 

The business counts names such as Geoff Neal Group, Wyndeham Grange, Pureprint among its clients. 

"Moving forward we want to make sure we keep investing in people and equipment, that's where many companies go wrong by not doing that.

"In five or maybe even 10 years we will look at bringing everything under one roof. But first it's about getting ourselves into a really strong position."