Merthyr Tydfil magazine printer Stephens & George Print Group (S&G) bought out the shareholding of Enfield Printing Company (EPC) owner and chairman Tony Stokes earlier this month.
Stokes, who founded the business in 1972, was forced to buy the company back last year following its ill-fated sale to Evinco Holdings.
Documents seen by PrintWeek state that the business, which specialises in short-run magazines, had struggled to compete in the highly competitive publications market since and has accumulated more than £200,000 of losses.
In addition to the trading challenges, EPC’s landlord wanted to sell the firm’s factory and was unwilling to sign a new lease. This will require EPC to vacate the building by the end of the year.
Stokes engaged with a number of magazine printers about a possible takeover of the business, resulting in the deal with £25.2m turnover S&G. S&G managing director Andrew Jones is now managing director of EPC.
In a letter to employees, Jones said that the business was well-respected, with a good reputation and customer base.
However, he said the requirement to vacate the Enfield factory meant that it had not been possible to come up with a viable plan to reinvest in new equipment. EPC’s ageing B2 presses made it difficult for the firm to compete with rival magazine printers with newer, more efficient printing technology.
As a result, “the decision was made to move our manufacturing operations to S&G’s South Wales state-of-the-art factory, but to maintain a London presence by creating a Magazine Printing Company (MPC) satellite office with a team solely responsible for maintaining and growing the MPC customer base,” the letter stated.
A 30-day employee consultation is underway because the changes are likely to result in a number of redundancies at EPC. EPC currently employs around 50 staff.
However, there is also the potential that a satellite production unit could be retained in the Enfield area.
MPC runs three eight-colour B2 Speedmasters and a five-colour B2 model with UV coating for cover printing. The self-contained operation includes perfect binding, stitching, polywrapping and mailing.
Jones told PrintWeek that he could not comment in detail while the consultation was underway, but that EPC was trading as usual during the consultancy period.
“Nothing is agreed as yet because the consultation is ongoing. The business is operating as normal. It is not being closed down and will remain an ongoing entity,” Jones said.
EPC had sales of £4.8m in 2015, and made a small profit of just under £84,000. Stokes has loaned the business £425,233.
“I wanted to honour our suppliers who were hurt [by what happened after the sale to Evinco] and I have had to finance the cashflow for the last 12 months,” Stokes said. “I wanted to find a better solution for the business and thought we’ve got to find a guardian for the company and the customers going forward, and what better firm than S&G?”
Stokes, who is 75, will stay on as chairman and director of EPC in a semi-retired capacity.
