BPA comes into the frame for Focus Press

Mark Shergill to take on the troubled printer and avoid liquidation but suppliers and staff are facing substantial losses of jobs and revenue.

Following days of intense speculation about the future of Focus Press, dynamic East Coast printer BPA, will buy out David Fuller’s struggling Sydney-based business. BPA, also trading as Print Warehouse, operates from Dunlop Street South Strathfield, the same location as Focus. The transaction is regarded as a white knight play with David Fuller in intense negotiations with Mark Shergill to effect an orderly transition.

The Focus Press sites at South Strathfield and Matraville are likely to close with major job losses.

Focus got into trouble last week with its staff being told to stay home on Friday. Strenuous behind the scenes efforts by David Fuller, managing director, and others to save the company from liquidation now appear to have paid off.

There will be job losses across the four sites of Focus Press – South Strathfield, Matraville, ACT and Illawarra – although details are still being worked out. According to David Fuller there was no preplanning in the discussions with Shergill. “It all happened really quickly and we’re still going through the details,” he said.

Shergill has inspected the Illawarra and Canberra sites in the past couple of days and has still to visit the Matraville site before the full extent of the buyout becomes clear. He has emerged as a new East Coast print magnate in recent times. Trading as NewTone he bought BPA and Troedel Print in Melbourne last year and Dynamic Print Communications in Queensland to add to his Print Warehouse in Sydney.

Commenting on the collapse of Focus Press, Fuller said he was reluctant to pinpoint one event as the cause of the failure. “We’re still in talks with the insurance company over several million dollars for the Illawarra,” he said.

A series of mishaps at the state-of-the-art plant, founded with over $6 million of Government assistance, saw the big KBA sheetfed press off line since December. A smashed cylinder was to be repaired but a second damaged cylinder was discovered when the press was disassembled. The new cylinder had to be specially manufactured by KBA in Germany.

The failure of Focus Press has provoked unprecedented vitriol as many in the industry use Fuller as a lightning rod for discontent. Wild accusations have been described as "troubling" by the industry veteran who has built one of the fastest growing print companies in recent times. "It doesn't matter what I say, they'll still believe what they like," he said.