Fergies, one of the oldest print businesses n the country and the biggest independent printer in Queensland has been bought by local rival Printcraft.

Neither company would comment on the deal, not the detaiols of what will happen to the plant and staff at 150 year old Fergies. Both companies operate in similar fields of offset, digital, wide format, mail and logistics.

Fergies was founded in 1868 by Scottish immigrant James Ferguson. Print veteran John Ferguson has been managing director of Fergies for 42 out of the 51 years he worked there, and was awarded an Order of Australia (OAM) last year for his service to the community and sailing.

The move is the biggest print merger in Queensland to date, apart from the PMP IPMG plants, and continues the wave of consolidation that has been taking place in the industry over the past 18 months, in both printers and suppliers, which has seen the country’s heatset web printers morph into just two groups, PMP and IVE, and web press manufacturing giants manroland and Goss merge, with Muller Martini buying the Kolbus bookbinding and binding business, and Fujifilm buying the Xerox business, although that is not a done deal with various shareholders battling to prevent it.

Printcraft managing director is David Gatsby. It is based across Queensland and NSW, with its headquarters being based in Eagle Farm, eastern Brisbane and two additional sites in Townsville and Sydney.

Fergies, in its nearby Hamilton facility, claims to be the largest family owned offset and digital printer in Queensland. Earlier this year the company signed a $1.85m contract extension with the Australian Electoral Commission, to supply printing packaging and storage of ballot papers. The original contract beginning in 2016 was extended to 2020.

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