Private equity pain persists – letters to the editor

Last week’s letter from Phil Heaton struck a note with printers who feel something is missing from the industry. In a candid and unflinching letter to Print21, Chris Day shares his thoughts on the industry then and now.

Re: The problem with private equity in print - letters to the editor

As someone with nearly 40 years in the industry, I think that I’m better placed than most to talk about equity buy outs against private ownership.

During my time, I saw, or was involved in, the lot; from being in companies that were taken over (several times), to starting a very small  print company from scratch, closing down a company, being involved in buying out a company I was an employee at, being involved in buying a lot of print companies (as sales director of Buscombe/Vicprint later Penfold Buscombe) to later selling out my share holding when private equity made a bid for the company.

I loved the printing industry. I originally came from outside the industry, having been hired by Multi Form (G W Greens) to take over their purchasing/ warehousing area. Nowadays, I suppose they would call it logistics/print management and set up a separate company!

Being part of a vibrant and changing industry like design/print/d m/mail and distribution of a finished product was a major challenge. I remember being told by Len Milgate, the managing director of Greens on my first day about the challenges of running a print company during the war years and early years after. He was making a point to me as buyer on the group’s loyalty to suppliers who looked after you in those terrible days. For those of us who worked through the 70s with the meltdown from Japan where paper increased in price by 25 per cent overnight, followed by no work (let alone at Greens we were burnt down) we had our own equivalent of a war.

The rollercoaster of highs and lows have continued ever since. I hate to think of the number of times in 30 years that experts have told us the industry will not exist in five years. Yes, things change and involve. The private equity buy-outs never made sense to me. Why would anyone think that they could own print/mail companies and then float them off in four to five years (or less) and make 25 per cent per year for each year they owned them? If it was that simple we would have all made a lot more money and we knew the industry backwards.

We knew how to run a successful, profitable business. We knew there were ups and downs as there is in any economy. We knew that people not machines were our most valuable asset. We knew that as technology changed we had to change, but only if it added to our businesses’ offering to our clients, not spend money to keep machinery companies or paper mills in business and most of important of all to understand our client’s needs, ensure we meet or exceed our client’s expectation and ensure we were the first company of choice to supply their companies print services.

It’s not easy, but that is what it’s all about, and perhaps I should add as an ex-purchasing person: ensure your suppliers are treated fairly, recognise that they have to make a profit selling to you and pay them on time. That’s something we prided ourselves on at Buscombe Vicprint and something I learnt from G W Greens 40 years ago.

Chris Day (very happy to be retired national sales mananger D M Penfold Buscombe)