Bambra Press in voluntary administration

One of Australia’s most well known and highly regarded printers, Bambra Press, is in voluntary administration with a combination of an 80 per cent drop in work due to the coronavirus and some bad debts cited by the company’s directors as the cause.

Bambra directors John Wanless and Troy Riley issued a joint statement today saying they had made the extremely difficult decision to take this step as thorough analysis had shown the only way for the business to survive would be through a massive restructure which at this point was financially out of reach for the company to achieve.

The long-standing 40-year-old business will continue to operate under administration, with the administrators looking to sell it as a going concern.

Wanless has told Sprinter the decision to enter voluntary administration was incredibly difficult but necessary.

“We could have dragged this out until 30 September when JobKeeper ends but we would have still have had this mountain to climb over. The cost of making the redundancies we needed to make were sizeable,” Wanless told Sprinter.

“The brand is strong, our suppliers and customers have been very supportive so I think the times are really challenging and people appreciate that some businesses are going to struggle even though they might have a good brand.”

In a statement, Wanless and Riley pointed to what led to this difficult decision.

“We’ve spent hours, days and weeks analysing different scenarios, also using this time to see if there was any significant bounce back in sales. Sales have not bounced, and the only option for the business under any of the forecast scenarios is to restructure to a manageable size (about half or less than current),” Wanless and Riley said in the statement.

“The cost of restructure is out of our reach, which has led us into voluntary administration. The business will continue to operate as normal under voluntary administration, with the administrators looking to sell the business as a going concern.

“Leaving our staff, suppliers and customers in this predicament is the hardest and most unimaginable position we ever thought we’d be in. There’s an emotional attachment to all of the people we have worked with over the years, but unfortunately emotion needs to be put to the side, and the fact is that the hard decision had to be made.

“Knowing what the ultimate outcome would be, we felt obliged to call it now rather than dragging it out for everyone.

“We thank all the people and businesses we have had the pleasure of dealing with over the journey and apologise wholeheartedly.”

Comment below to have your say on this story.

If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.  

Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter

3 thoughts on “Bambra Press in voluntary administration

  1. My thoughts are with John and his team during this incredibly difficult time – Bambra’s reputation was second to none – great quality output, amazing customer service, and just an all-round quality business.

  2. Very Sad to say the least,
    Great Company, Great People all led by life’s gentleman,
    Certainly our best wishes go out to John his team and all their families.
    A shitty 2020 year only just got much worse!
    Hope things get better for all involved.

Leave a comment:

Your email address will not be published. All fields are required

Advertisement

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.
Advertisement