Letters, feedback, get it off your chest 16 February 2011
'Low suckers' price' for CPI claims one outraged shareholder. Other letter writers continue to focus on industry sales techniques.
Re: BJ Ball rolls up CPI in paper industry shakeup
Personally I think PagePack's offer price is sucker’s price given current assets (109 cents comprising nta of 86 cents plus franking credits of 23 cents) and flagged potential increase in earnings from 2012 of $6 to 10 million p.a. after the warehouse rationalisation is completed in December 2011.
CPIG paid NTA for Red Paper Group in November 2007, plus a $2.5 million right of first refusal fee. Franking credits of 23.2 cents per share means a fully franked dividend of 54 cents is possible. As a long term shareholder in CPIG, I won’t be accepting Pagepack's low sucker’s price.
BJ Ball is trying to steal the company at an opportunistic time when CPIG is nearing the completion of a major restructure and its performance has been hurt by a strong $AUD (versus $US).
BJ Ball is trying to steal the upside, pocket the tax credits and pay less than 50 per cent of current assets (nta plus franking credits). Why am I not surprised when I see ex-Goldman Sach banksters running Maui Capital?
An orderly windup of CPIG maybe a better option for shareholders, but Executive Directors of CPIG would lose jobs.
Shane Clarke
Shareholder in CPI Group
Re: Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 9 February 2011
Being in sales for short run digital printing companies in Sydney for the past 16 years I have to agree.
We are in a new world of getting our products, information and companies out there, but few have embraced these available options.
I currently work for a company that has "seen the light" being taken on as sales manger my position has morphed into a BDM within six months. Some of it was my pushing, but eventually I feel, like this company, all print business will have to adapt and do what we are doing. We are utilising social media, developing our website, product catalogues, digital and hard copy ones. We are looking at Facebook ads, Google Adwords for small businesses and various other on and offline promotional and sales avenues to progress our business.
The old blokey world, which I was very much a part of is fading; I relied on my mates and they relied on me to bring in and pass on business. The younger people that are now my customers and friends do not do business as we use to do during the 70s 80s and the 90s.
I have, in the past few years, worked for companies that did just as Phil Heaton’s letter described. They took me on for my industry contacts and my reputation, and expected the jobs and money to roll in: they didn't and they are basically gone forever. My contacts and reputation mean little today; people buy things off me because I was good bloke – those days are gone. The companies that don't change will be the greedy small ones, and there is still some out there like this who do nothing for this great industry, and they will go, as they refuse to change.
The owner of the company here has also seen the world change and decided that we need to do something about it before we end up another causality in this new digital world. While our business development is only in its baby stages it offers us hope and a light at the end of the road, in place of relying on my mates to throw business at me. Today, people still want to deal with people and still have that face-to-face interaction, as the banks have now realised, but we saw that we need a greater variety of options to maintain our business.
The old ways were killing us.
Rob Kennedy
l refer to the article by Phil Heaton. Phil, this is a great call. However you left out one important factor, that is that print managers and some sales people don't understand print.
Some sales people don't know the difference between saddle stitched, burst bound cover drawn on, section sewn, how to guide their customer through the printing process. l could go on and on ... so how are they going to sell print?
Michael Arimatea