Diana Levy
Production manager, Royal Horticultural Society Media

YES
I react with sadness whenever a UK print company closes, especially if I have worked with it for a long time. But I do not support pre-pack deals. In fact, I am violently opposed to companies that are bought in this way and I would not place work with any of them. In the past year, I have been caught up in a situation where a supplier closed and then reopened though a pre-pack deal. Under no circumstances would I place work with such a company, especially if it is still owned by the same management.

Paul Dawe
Director, CMP

YES
In general, I think there’s something wrong with pre-pack deals as they just seem like phoenix companies to me. I am not saying that it is always the company’s fault if it fails. But if a company has failed then it has done so for a reason and it probably won’t survive after
the pre-pack deal. Someone recently said to me that the only time a business makes money is when it is bankrupt. I feel that even if pre-pack deals are made more transparent, there will still be issues with them.

Tony Fairbairn
Director, Armstrong Print Group

YES
I don’t have any first-hand experience of a pre-pack deal, but on the face of it, it seems to be a legalised phoenix. It makes it easy for a liquidator to come in and sell off the best bits of a company at a knock-down price, usually to the same people who had managed it into administration. If a business is known to be struggling, and it can benefit from a pre-pack restructure with money available to spend and apparent support from suppliers, why can’t this be used to save the core business to the benefit of creditors and staff?

Simon Moore
Managing director, Eclipse Colour Print

YES
Our opinion regarding pre-packs is a simple one: if the owners of a new company have had no association or involvement with the previous business, the pre-pack is a positive result for the staff. The creditors, although having lost money, must decide whether to take on the opportunities being presented by the new incumbents. If, however, the previous directors have any involvement, it is quite correct for it to be perceived as a phoenix and thus not be supported. This will take out capacity and give the rest of the industry a chance for survival.