Singh and his wife Dawn have bought North Wolds Printers from majority shareholder Peter Meggitt, who is retiring.
Singh said the deal came about following a chance newspaper purchase. “I’d been to a meeting in Leeds and picked up a Yorkshire Post. There were two print businesses for sale in the business section and one of them sounded interesting.
“It was just serendipity, it really was. And I missed print!”
North Wolds Printers operates from 1,022sqm premises in Pocklington. It runs B2 litho kit including a five-colour Komori Lithrone and two-back-two Komori Spica perfector, alongside two Konica Minolta digital presses, and a range of post-press kit. It also has letterpress printing facilities.
Other services include storage and dispatch from a separate warehouse facility in a neighbouring unit.
“I could see there was a huge amount of potential in the business, the staff are great and they still have those craft skills,” Singh said.
“My ambitions are quite big, I plan to develop the digital side and bring a team on to learn the traditional skills, and then one day they can run it.”
Singh becomes managing director and Meggitt will stay on for a three month transition period. Sales director Chris Sykes will remain with the company, which works for a wide variety of clients including education and training organisations.
Meggitt said he was very happy to have found a buyer who wanted to take the business forward: “I always planned to retire at 65. As soon as I saw Gurdev’s name I looked him up on PrintWeek and thought he had the right sort of background. When we met we hit it off straightaway. He’s back in the industry where he belongs.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
North Wolds Printers was being marketed by Richmond Capital Partners, and Singh praised chief executive Paul Holohan and his team for their professional services.
Holohan said: "Gurdev was a pleasure to deal with because he does things in the right order. I can understand why he's been successful in his career."
Since leaving Communisis last October Singh has worked as a consultant for KPMG and also became a non-executive director at Leeds digital agency Bloom.
“I have loved learning about how social media dovetails with print. Print is definitely not dead, it’s about how you interact with other channels, and what works best for the clients,” he added.
