TPF manufacturing business sold to former management

The remaining print manufacturing business of The Print Factory London (1991) has been bought out of administration by a team led by former senior operations manager Andrew Parker and senior sales manager Mike Kingsman.

Joint administrators Allan Graham and David Standish, of KPMG, who were appointed on 17 February, have confirmed a sale of the trade and assets of the company for an undisclosed sum.

Graham said KPMG had received a number of expressions of interest for the business and that he was "delighted to have agreed the sale" within six weeks of being appointed with "minimal disruption to the staff and the business".

Kingsman and Parker confirmed that more than 100 jobs at the Northampton-based business would be saved as a result of the sale.

Parker said: "Mike and I are investing in a very committed and talented group of staff, as well as many loyal clients and suppliers.

"The priority now is to refocus on the core print manufacturing strengths of this operation, which means a quality product, at a fair price, backed up by some of the best people in the industry."

The sale of the Northampton manufacturing site follows the sale of former TPF Group subsidiaries Reelform and McCorquodale to the latter's managing director and former minority shareholder Carl Bullright, plus the sale of the BPO arm to Office2office subsidiary, AccessPlus.

Graham said: "This sale was the final part of a successful administration strategy. Shortly after appointment, in order to protect the value in the business contracts, we sold the trade and assets of the BPO division to AccessPlus.

"The print business of The Print Factory and Reelform, based in Northampton and Derby, continued to trade in administration servicing the BPO business together with other contracts, while the joint administrators sought a going concern sale.

"The sale of Reelform was agreed on 11 March 2010 and, with the sale of TPF today (24 March), we have secured the jobs of 365 employees in total. We are delighted to confirm that no redundancies were made during the administration."

Parker said that he was already on the lookout for industry talent to bolster the senior management team, with further details to be announced over the coming weeks.

However, it was unclear at the time of writing whether the company would keep The Print Factory as its trading name.