McPherson's printing pulls in the profits

McPherson's claims the re-equipment and restructure programme for its book and commercial printing is well on the way to being wrapped up by January 2006. The company committed approximately $10 million in capital expenditure, mainly in book finishing equipment from IPP Print & Pack, over the financial year, and expects the operational benefits from the upgrades to kick in during the second half of the 2005/06.

Alan Fahy, who clocked in as the new chief executive officer of the printing division in the new financial year, claims the results demonstrate the division to have secured an impressive performance. "We definitely had a reasonable year, we had a lot going on with the new equipment, which we expect to be fully operational by the second half of the financial year. This will allow for big improvements in efficiency and the services we provide to customers."

The printing division's earnings-before-tax fell to $6.8 million from the previous year's figure of $12.2 million, a change attributed to the sale of its directory printing business to PMP, made effective from 1st October 2004.

The book & commercial printing division turned a profit in line with the previous year's results, while the directory printing unit contributing $2.6 million for the part of the year it remained under ownership.

David Allman, managing director at McPherson's Limited, claims the major investment in the company's printing operations will place the company in a sound position to deal with what is likely to be a challenging trading environment.