Wayne Sidwell raises $13.5m for 31.5% of new Wellcom

Five years after quitting the erstwhile, family-owned prepress company, Show Ads, following its buy-out by PMP, Wayne Sidwell has vindicated the faith of the many staffers who followed him to his new company, Well.com. After growing its revenue base from an initial $7.1 million to the current $30.5 million – resulting in a forecast after tax profit of $3.95 million – he has proved to be the darling of the share market.

With 75 per cent of the new company’s assets listed in the prospectus as intangibles, the shares were snapped up within a day of being made available. According to Charles Anzarut, non-executive director, the intangibles relate mainly to goodwill based on the blue chip client list, which includes most of the top advertising agencies, and from the quality of the people in the company.

“To my mind, Wayne has gathered the best people in the industry and they provide the best service. There may not be room for many such companies, perhaps only one, but Wellcom is it,” he said.

Since its inception Wellcom has acquired three businesses; Color Solutions in April 2002 in Sydney; Barr Parkinson in October 2003 in Adelaide; and Laser Graphics in December 2003 which significantly expanded the size of its Sydney
operations and customer base.

Wellcom describes itself as a full service pre-media and print production company providing pre-media, asset management and specialty print solutions to advertising agencies and corporate entities including some of Australia’s leading retailers. The company operates primarily within the services to printing industry, but also has specialized printing capabilities, notably the only two KBA Karat 72 presses in the country, and a HP Indigo digital press.

Among its advertising agency clients are M&C Saatchi, Publicis Mojo, Saatchi & Saatchi, Singleton Ogilvy & Mather, George Patterson Partners, Whybin TBWA, Leo Burnett, Grey Worldwide, Moon Design, McCann Erickson and Dewey Horton. In addition, Wellcom’s client list includes corporates such as Woolworths, Optus, David Jones, L’Oreal, Cadbury Schweppes, Harris Scarfe and Nestle. Wellcom also has a 50% owned iPrint joint venture entity with Australia Post

Wellcom employs nearly 200 staff, with offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.