ICSM Business Insolvency News: it’s been a cruel, cruel summer as more printing firms hit the buffers

By Harry Mottram: The harsh winds of the economy have continued to send shivers down the printing industry as more firms find the aftereffects of Covid, servicing loans with high interest rates hikes in paper costs and a decline in business takes their toll. The sector’s trade publication Print Week has charter a few of the casualties who haven’t made it through to the autumn. First up is H Charlesworth & Co who traded as Charlesworth Press – just eight weeks after the business merged with TJ Books.

Print Week’s Jo Francis reported the Wakefield-based firm filed a Notice of Intention to Appoint Administrators on 5 August which came soon after the merger with the Padstow-based TJ Books who soon took over some the firm’s equipment. Francis didn’t get an answer from the newly merged firm but with the some 70 staff left in the lurch feelings amongst works and suppliers to the Wakefield outfit were running high. The trade publication noted: “At the balance sheet date creditors due with one year had increased by £1m to £2.37m.”

A name familiar to some in the printing industry for all the wrong reasons is one Matthew Herbert, who has been bankrupted by one of his many creditors. Journalist Dominic Bernard reported that Federal Capital forced the former boss into bankruptcy in July Southampton County Court. Herbert had form with collapsed LA Digital owing creditors more than half a million pounds in 2023 and in the same year GPS – which traded as Print It 24 Seven – where we was a director went bust earlier this year. And he was at the helm of previous failed firm Monster Media Management which also left a trail of debts.

Moving to Leeds the RNB Group who specialise in direct mail and associated services such as data services and fulfilment hit a cash crisis in the summer filed a Notice of Intention to Appoint Administrators in August. The business has been sold to newco PDMF Ltd was sold later that month prompting Begbies Traynor to announce: “RNB Group is a long-established and well-known Leeds business which simply ran into some short-term cash flow problems. Fortunately, we were able to act swiftly to market the business and conclude a sale for it as a going concern. It’s great news for the staff, suppliers and customers that the business will continue in the hands of new owners.”

Meanwhile Shoreham-by-Sea Gemini Print (pictured) collapsed in June owing well over £6m when it went into administration with the majority of its employees made redundant  as Jonathan James Beard and John Walters of Begbies Traynor Central completed the winding up of existing orders. A statement at Companies House blamed the financial difficulties on the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, rent hikes, energy price rises and a bad debt leaving a shortfall when it crashed of more than £6m.

Dominic Bernard of Print Week also charted the demise of Pontypridd firms Big Bang and DecTek who are described as sister companies that ceased trading in August. insolvency practitioners Dean Collins and Brendan Doyle of Doyle Davies in Cardiff estimated the firms owed £1.6m with the taxman a quarter of a million quid headache.

And to complete this summer of woe Print Week’s Richard Stuart-Turner reported on the Northwolds Richardson Group, that had merged with North Wolds Printers and Wood Richardson last year. In August the firm collapsed into administration. He reported: “According to filings on The Gazette, Phil Clark and Dave Clark of Clark Business Recovery were appointed joint administrators of Northwolds Richardson Group Ltd on 21 August. Following the merger of the group's two businesses in May 2023, which saw North Wolds acquire the staff, assets, and order book of Wood Richardson, Northwolds Richardson had a turnover of around £2.5m and operated Komori litho presses and Xerox digital printers from its site in Pocklington, east of York.”

See Print Week's full article at https://www.printweek.com/content/news/insolvencies-departures-closures-and-criminal-activity-print-s-toughest-month

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