Standard Publishing House moves up a gear with Rapid Digital

Less than a week after it entered voluntary administration, Rapid Digital has resurfaced as part of Standard Publishing House.

The 16-year-old Artarmon-based company, previously owned by digital printing pioneer, Ron Anderson, is now in the hands of Standard Publishing House. Managing director, Neil Armstrong, bought the business on Friday 26 February.

Anderson called in the administrators a week before but said he was shocked by the decision to sell the business. Rapid Digital was famous as the first company to install two iGen3s. It operated as a 'For Trade-Only' digital printer.

According to Armstrong, Standard Publishing House has been looking to move into digital publishing for some time and the purchase of Rapid Digital presented a unique opportunity to do that.  “We want to get into personalised colour mailing for marketing,” Armstrong said. “We had been looking at machinery for several weeks prior to this.”

Armstrong (pictured) has a history of taking over companies in trouble, having purchased Standard Publishing Company in December 2007, which he recounts was “doomed and heading for liquidation.” Last year, he also purchased the former factory of Planned Print, which entered receivership in early 2008.

“We have some experience in taking companies out of receivership,” Armstrong said. “Purchasing Rapid Digital meant that we were able to get new machinery and a team of 10 staff that are highly experienced in book and point-of-sale production which is a huge bonus because the people are what make a company work.”

Rapid Digital is currently operating out of the Artarmon building. Armstrong is not certain whether it will remain there, or merge with the SPH headquarters in Strathfield South. “It will take about two months to bed down everything,” he said.