JPS was set up by John Petty 30 years ago this month. He was joined three years later by his sister Bridget Petty.
The business specialises in the management of the full range of customer communications. With tailored offerings across print, mailing, postage, and point-of-sale to meet the requirements of each client, the company is totally independent with no supplier ties.
It manages the print and associated products for a broad range of multichannel retailers, with a strong bias towards the fashion, home, and lifestyle sectors.
John Petty retired last year but Bridget Petty remains as the company’s managing director, alongside marketing professional Fiona Maurice, who is its client services director.
Similarly production agnostic independent print management agency PMG, which was founded in 2003, said that finding a company that shared its culture was essential to the acquisition, and it hailed JPS’ technical strength and client loyalty.
The deal was completed on Thursday (18 January). Mike Roberts, managing director at PMG and immediate past president of the IPIA, told Printweek: “Originally we actually approached JPS independently six years ago – acquisition has always been part of my strategy but the time just wasn’t right for them then.
“It came back to us towards the back end of last year, and with John retiring the time was right.
“What was important for the Petty family is that they sold to the right partner with the same outlook. Having met the JPS team [on Thursday], it’s amazing how similar they are to my team at PMG, which is what I want. I can’t believe how right it feels.”
With Bridget Petty staying on as managing director of JPS, reporting to Roberts, alongside the company’s six other staff that have also been retained, PMG’s group headcount has grown from 12 to 19 following the completion of the deal.
“It’s a hugely complementary business, gives us greater scale and more than doubles our run rate at PMG – it’s fantastic,” Roberts added.
The JPS branding will also be retained, according to Roberts “because we’ve both got very respected names, with our respective client bases”.
“There are some overlaps with supply chain – not as many as you might expect, but they will be run as two completely independent businesses with the common denominator being me.”
He added: “They don’t have any warehousing, stock management, or web-based ordering systems, which we do, and we also have an in-house studio team, which they don’t have, so these are the soft areas that we’re going to explore. We’re not going to force anything down on the business or the clients, but if there’s an opportunity, we’ll take a different approach.
“And we’re going to win on the supply chain, I think they’ve got a number of suppliers that we maybe don’t have.”
Bridget Petty also commented: “We have known PMG Print Management within the industry for several years and like JPS, they are renowned for the quality of their work. When considering our succession opportunities, finding a partner who had similar values to our own was of the utmost importance and we trust Mike Roberts, together with our talented team, to take this business from strength to strength.”
Birstall-based PMG is based around 50 minutes’ drive away from JPS in Otley. The JPS team will remain in their current area – although are coincidentally moving into another office at the same location.
Both the PMG and JPS teams have a hybrid working model, and there will be no changes to the team at PMG either, with everything business as usual for clients.
PMG was advised by Fleetcroft-Gribben on the acquisition and supported on legal and financial advisory services by Capital Law, DSW Transaction Services, Independent VAT Consultants, Temple Bright, and CDFS. Funding was provided by Close Brothers.
JPS was advised by Dexterity Partners on the sale and supported on legal services by 3volution.
