The deal, completed on 5 June, saw Whyte acquire the firm’s holding company from McWilliams’ son, Stuart, who had bought the company in 2019.
Following a change of heart from his son, McWilliams stepped back in to steer things as chairman, with Whyte stepping up from finance director to managing director in 2019.
“It’s business as usual, but we’re looking forward to the future,” Whyte told Printweek.
“I love working with the people here, and I want to take the company forward and do new things. There’s a young team of managers coming through that are ambitious about the [company’s] future, so it’s very exciting.”
Steering the firm through a difficult pandemic – when the 40% of turnover made up of hospitality work fell away – Whyte has now managed to build the company back up to 29 staff from a pre-Covid peak of around 36.
“It was definitely a cold shower,” Whyte said, adding that resourceful sales work had helped get the company through the tough trading period.
“We supplied local schools, public-sector hospitals, and food manufacturing companies, and there was a lot of large-format with floor signage – but we’re back to normal.”
Printing on Heidelberg Speedmaster 74 four-colour and Speedmaster 52 two-colour B2 presses, alongside Ricoh Pro C9100 and Pro C9200 digital presses and Brother and Canon on wide-format poster printing, the firm is able to handle nearly any application it has requested, including a post-Covid foray into cake boxes.
Whyte added: “We offer quite a unique service to predominantly hospitality clients, alongside a general print service where nothing is too much trouble – perhaps a little old-fashioned, but people still value that.”
For the more unusual applications, Whyte likes to keep jobs bespoke, and run lengths low, with larger label or wide-format jobs passed out to well-established trade connections in the area.
“It suits us being at the smaller end of volumes,” he epxlained.
“Not quite variable data, but we certainly handle varying information [within jobs], or limited releases when people aren’t quite sure on their branding.”
Over the next year, LT’s focus will be on expanding the firm’s reach and raising its public profile, Whyte said.
“We’ll be raising our profile with clients, because we quite often hear the words ‘We never know you did that’ – they might be used to asking for leaflets or brochures, but didn’t know we did roller banners, posters or labels,” Whyte explained.
“Quite often, those with start-up businesses want bespoke labelling, but aren’t at a scale to warrant large-format. So we try to help everybody that needs it in the North West.”
LT Print Group turns over just over £2m annually.
