The company, which had an annual turnover of around £1.5m, suffered a drop in orders and cashflow problems before calling in recovery experts RSM Restructuring Advisory, which contacted Anthony Cockcroft, owner of Leeds businesses Cutting Edge, Multimount Revolutionary Displays and Hull-based DisplayPak, among others.
DisplayPak and GKD Litho had done business together and shared the same building in Hull prior to Cockcroft’s ownership four years ago and the two businesses knew each other but Cockcroft said that otherwise they were not related.
His other companies, predominately DisplayPak, do however have a £500,000 annual litho spend with other printers. When he saw the location of the business Cockcroft thought it was worth a look.
“I promised myself I wasn’t going to acquire any more businesses,” he told PrintWeek, “I didn’t know they were struggling but it made sense to talk to them. They’ve got a really good reputation for quality and service. We didn’t have any litho at all, I thought I could generate some efficiencies from our production by having a commercial printer within the portfolio.”
He met GKD Litho Limited’s minority shareholder and production director Phillip Taylor and saw its 2008 six-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 102, plus coater, which the company bought last year for around £900,000. The press can handle box board up to 800 microns and is ideal for printing on board which can then be film-laminated, die-cut and hand assembled into pop-ups by DisplayPak.
Within a fortnight, after a swift negotiation with RSM, he had w incorporated a new company GKD Print Limited and used it to acquire GKD Litho Limited for a seven-figure sum.
“The press they’ve got is absolutely awesome. It was hard to resist once I got in there,” Cockcroft said. “Those guys really look after it, they’ve been there for 20 to 25 years. They’ve got some really good staff and some really good machines, all they need is a little bit of work to balance out the peaks and troughs.”
Cockcroft does not intend to bring all of DisplayPak’s litho work in-house but will use it to top up GKD’s order book.
Taylor is now production manager at the company and Cockcroft will manage the business end. GKD Litho managing director and majority shareholder, Kevin Wilkinson, whose father started the business, has decided to exit print.
Cockcroft said that he did not plan any major changes to the structure and anticipates he will only be hands-on for six months or so before “taking the stabilisers off”.
“They’ve got a really good structure that works – estimating, production, sales – they just need someone to knit it all together,” he said.
The press could also be converted to UV easily, he added. In the future he may site GKD and DisplayPak in the same building and possibly add some packaging conversion but added: “I’m going to walk before I run.”
Joint administrators Keith Marshall and Gareth Harris were appointed over GKD Litho Limited on 11 March 2016 and the sale of its business and assets was completed on the evening of the same day.
Marshall, a restructuring partner based in RSM’s Hull and Leeds offices said: “The sale of the business and assets to GKD Print Limited is a positive outcome which has not only saved jobs but the rescue preserves a strong established local Hull business, reduces disruption for customers and ensures continuity in the supply chain.”
Cockroft, whose business interests now amount to more than £11m a year in sales, believes GKD Print Limited’s annual turnover could rise to £3m.
