George outlined his plans at the company’s AGM. Speaking to Australian Printer he says, “We are planning to win back market share, and we plan on doing this from a low cost manufacturing base, in fact form the lowest cost in the industry.”

At the AGM George said the company would be going back to basics and focusing on its core competency, printing.  Outgoing chairman Ian Fraser said the PMP board made a grave strategic error in trying to become a leading media and marketing services company, when it should have aggressively cut costs years earlier and focused on its core printing and distribution business.

Speaking at the AGM Fraser says,  “In my early years as a director, the board and management attempted to modernise and grow the business when, in hindsight, we should have probably been only focusing on modernising and reducing the cost structure of our major print businesses in Australia and New Zealand,”

George says the country’s biggest printer is planning to transform its cost structure, work out of less expensive regional centres. He also says that the company is working with the strategic imperative that there is too much heatset capacity in the industry.

George’s plans come at a time when rival IPMG is working on opening its brand new Warwick Farm heatset plant, which it aims to be the most efficient automated heatset site in the country.

Ian Fraser has been on the board for nine years, he is being replaced as chairman by Matthew Bickford-Smith. In his outgoing message Fraser warned the printing industry faces an uncertain future, he says, “Severe structural changes are in play as the shift from print to digital gathers pace.”

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