The original Advance Press was founded in 1938 and was owned by the Westfarmers conglomerate, then sold to CTI Logistics in the late 1980s before being bought by Gresham p/e in 2007 for $11.2m and rolled into the ill-fated Geon brand.

Gresham p/e, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars on its Geon investment – and blasted a major hole in the entire printing industry thanks to its unsustainable pricing policy – is partly owned by Westfarmers.

Advance managing director Ian Smith was at the helm throughout the Geon era, and prior to that under its previous owners.  The other members of the management buyout team are Paul Meloncelli, John Hartley and Steve Carrier.

Advance was the only part of Geon to be bought by its management team. The NSW and Victorian operations were bought by rival Blue Star, Tasmania was acquired by the well known Todisco family and Queensland was closed down. ACT was acquired by Blue Star as part of its NSW and Vic purchase, but then effectively given to Opus.

Geon New Zealand was also acquired by Blue Star, although that is a separate business to the Australian version.

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