Tradeprint, which operates from the same Dundee industrial estate as Tayprint and sub-let some of the latter's factory for additional capacity, has taken on Tayprint's customer book and seven of its staff already.

Anthony Rowell, sales and customer success director at Tradeprint, told Printweek that the company had only found out about the liquidation at the last minute.

“We’ve had to move really quickly, because we only found out just after the [liquidator] was appointed [...] it’s reasonably unique that they’ve just gone into liquidation rather than a pre-pack.”

Liquidators Ken Pattullo and Kenny Craig of Begbies Traynor were appointed as joint provisional liquidators on on Friday (26 August). According to a report in the Scottish Financial News they said that financial difficulties, exacerbated by the pandemic, were to blame for Tayprint's closure.

Rowell added: “Obviously, we really feel for the fact that it’s a huge loss to the community - and a potential loss of really highly skilled employees that have had long service there. Honestly, they’re such a nice team of people.”

Rowell said Tradeprint’s acquisition of some of Tayprint’s assets - including the customer book and website domain, and, he hoped, some of its wide-format printing equipment - made sense for the firm, which had actually been hoping to expand its large-format capability.

“Ironically, we’d already started investing heavily [in large-format].”

Some of Tayprint’s equipment was leased, so not all of it will be up for sale - but the kit Tradeprint had ordered will complement any machines it takes on from Tayprint, according to Rowell.

Add to this the seven - and counting - staff recruited from Tayprint’s original team of 19 employees, and Tradeprint will have managed to retain a significant wide-format skillbase in the area, while filling vacancies it has had open since the pandemic.

“We’re all hands to the pump onboarding the new employees, which is really exciting. They’re all very high quality, well-trained generalists, they’ve got great skills across the board from pre-press to finishing, to printing and packaging, so they’re great guys to have on board.”

Rowell added that Tradeprint had had an encouraging reaction from the wide-format firm’s existing customers.

He said: “We’re just having to ask customers for permission to see if they want to retain a relationship, but the feedback we’ve had has been exceptionally supportive.

“They’ve loved dealing with Tayprint, and they’re excited about the fact we’ve been able to protect those jobs.”

Printweek was unable to reach Tayprint for comment.