St Ives has reported record annual results and its tenth successive year of earnings growth with strong performances in its books, direct response and financial divisions.


The only blackspot was the groups US arm, which underperformed after suffering a series of setbacks.


Turnover was up 4.6% to 473.2m, with pre-tax profit leaping 14.5% to 68.8m. However, the City remained cool on print, with St Ives shares falling 3p to 423.5p.


Chairman Miles Emley said the group had up to 100m to spend on acquisitions, with North America the most likely target.

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The UK magazine market was "steady", with St Ives experiencing increasing price competition from competitors who had lost work to the continent. "Competitors have installed significant new capacity for which they are still looking for customers," said Emley.


St Ives financial division, Burrups, was "responsible for most of our UK sales growth," said Emley. An increased volume of annual reports was pushed through Westerham Press after it installed an eight-unit Heidelberg.


Emley thought paginations would continue to rise in the financial market, despite the threat from sending data via the Internet. "Life is becoming more, rather than less, bureaucratic," he added.


In the books division, there was an "emphasis on cost". However, St Ives had "won more than our crude market share of time-sensitive bestselling topical titles", said Emley, including four of the six titles on the Booker Prize shortlist.


Plans to relocate Clays have been shelved for the time being and St Ives plans to install new kit, including A and B format Timson presses and two replacement presses, possibly Komoris, at the Bungay site. "We cant wait for another year or two to get planning consent," said Emley.


St Ives multimedia fulfilment operation has been moved from Bungay to Romford to accommodate the kit. The group is also looking at buying a digital press, either Indigo or Xerox, for one of its Bradford sites.


Story by Gordon Carson