PMP backs new magazines to reach revenue target

Riding on the back of $20 million savings from severe middle and senior management redundancies and with the new MAN Roland Lithoman presses now up and fulfilling capacity promises, Evans believes most of the restructuring undertaken by the largest printer in the region is done.

“As a company we’d like to think we’re close to the point where the major
restructuring is complete. Obviously we’ll be pushing for further efficiencies
every year because that’s what our customers expect but we’re now over the major
hump in terms of restructuring costs,” he said in an interview with corporate file.

Company chief financial officer, Richard Allely, said that he expects attrition to take care of any future restructuring requirements. “We’ve closed a lot of printing sites over the last few years and incurred substantial redundancies associated with that. The redundancies associated with the investment we’ve made in new equipment have now been booked with the exception of South Australia. And we are now considering the closure of one directory printing site in order to improve our efficiency.”

As the new CEO, Evans is looking forward to utilizing the extra capacity the new presses will give the company after many months of having to refuse high margin spot work.

“Our new presses are the fastest in the country and obviously give advantage on turnaround. With the number of weekly titles now being launched in Australia, publishers are wanting to make their deadlines later and get out on the street faster, and it’s only companies like us that can do that,” he said.

“We’ve had to knock back work while the new presses were being installed, but that capacity now puts us in a very good position to go for work we wouldn’t have been game to go for while we couldn’t be confident we could produce it.

“The retail market is softening somewhat; everybody can feel that. That doesn’t
overly worry us because there’s a lot of new magazine titles coming into the
marketplace, with two new magazines launched in the last week or two. My
meetings with our major customers in the last three months gives me confidence
there’s considerable work in the marketplace available to us going forward.”

While respecting the need to match the prices available in the market he believes there are other ways the company can leverage its advantage. “We’re always conscious of having to meet the market. That’s a reality. But there’s a multitude of other things that make it more attractive to use PMP," he said

“For example, our national footprint means we’re able to print in different states; we’re
able to split print runs for customers, saving them significant freight costs.”