Vanguard moves to the front in Perth

Lamb Print and Vanguard Press have amalgamated, after together serving the Perth print market for more than 100 years. In a move that introduces a new era of print in Perth, Lamb Print was sold to Vanguard Press as at January 1, 2012.

The sale was structured as an asset sale, however both staff and management have been retained.

The consolidation makes a lot of sense to Chad Van Heemst, director for Vanguard Press, in regards to the people and the equipment being retained. He believes the new entity enhances the best of both businesses.
Steve Larcombe, the owner of Lamb Print, retains his role as general manager and will play an integral part in rebranding and building the business into the future.

“The pooling of resources will bring together a wealth of experience in intellectual capital and form a state of the art production site,” said Van Heemst. “We now have the right scale and equipment to compete in today’s market with enormous flexibility to deliver jobs. The injection of state of the art finishing equipment from Lamb Print, complements our recent acquisition of two Heidelberg printing presses – a 5-colour with aqueous coater and an 8-colour perfector press that is currently being installed. It is going to be an impressive production site when all installations are complete, which is expected to be mid-February”

Van Heemst said there is an amicable merging of Lamb Print management into the Vanguard operations. Both parties share a similar vision but bring to the table different skill sets. “We have bolstered our workforce with around 20 people, bringing our combined staff total to around 50 employees,” he says.

The Lamb Print site on Perth's Robertson St will be gone within the next few weeks, once the entire operation has shifted over to Vanguard’s site in Northbridge, WA.