The MBO at the wide-format trade printer was led by Fespa UK president Nicole Spencer and Richard Spencer who bought out family members to simplify the Hull business’s structure. The deal completed on 30 August.
Nicole Spencer, who becomes managing director, said that the business was launched eight years ago with the support of her husband Richard’s parents and, while they had been “incredibly supportive”, it had got to the point when the two of them wanted to simplify the decision-making process and buy the family out.
The deal had originally been due to close just before lockdown but was paused because of the pandemic.
However, she said they decided to push it through “because we had committed to it; we still wanted to do it”.
One of the first decisions made was to promote longstanding employee Alex Wood to the role of commercial director.
He joins Nicole and Richard Spencer, who becomes chairman, and production director Lee Cundill on the 20-staff firm’s board.
“I’ve worked with Alex for a long time, and when we started it was very much that the company did a lot of local work and wasn’t especially ambitious. Between me and Alex we’ve really pushed it forward and I have always felt that without him we wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are, so it’s nice to be able to reward that.”
The trade only business, which has sales of around £3m, briefly paused during lock-down, but is now back up to full strength, according to Nicole Spencer who also praised the team’s performance and professionalism during the pandemic.
“Everyone has really pulled together and I’ve been touched by how good everyone has been,” she said.
“We were closed for six weeks and I knew when we first got back that we were going to lose money [initially] when we opened, but we wanted to support our clients that were asking us to do things.”
Unlike many wide-format businesses, RMC didn’t switch to PPE production during lockdown as it felt this was potentially in competition with some of its customers, however it has supported many of its clients with social distancing graphics and screens.
“It has been tough, and we’ve had to make a couple of redundancies, but we have been quite busy recently and I can see a lot of green shoots now personally. Things are improving.”
To support the business’s growth ambitions, Spencer said she was considering investing in a hybrid press to possibly replace two of its existing machines.
As well as a number of Mimakis and range of finishing kit, the firm currently runs two roll-to-rolls, a Durst Rho 512R, installed last year, and an EFI Vutek GS5000r, and two hybrids a Vutek GS3250LX and a Rho P10 250HS.
“We’ve got great plans for the business over the coming months. We’re looking to boost our investment in new equipment, helping to streamline processes and ensure we continue to provide the best quality print solutions for our customers on time and on budget,” said Richard Spencer.
