Selig, who served as managing director of the Australian group until 2007, led an acquisition of the group’s Australian division by his firm, CaxtonWeb, and private equity firm Wolseley.

The widespread response from the industry shows belief that the new owners can restore the market-leading position of the diversified sheetfed, digital, web and print management group, which only last year was threatened with insolvency.

This year’s second-place went to Phil Taylor, chief executive of giant Melbourne catalogue printer Franklin Web, who was ranked sixth last year.

Taylor’s passion for print, his family heritage in the industry, his commitment to customers and the trading performance in the difficult economy were all reasons for his ranking.

This year, Taylor also led his firm into “augmented reality” as the sole agent for UK system Blippar, proving Franklin’s forward-thinking attitude.

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Wellcom executive chairman Wayne Sidwell rose up the rankings from eighth place in 2011 to be ranked third this year.

The listed group landed two plum accounts with NAB and Commonwealth Bank to go from small player to major print manager seemingly overnight, while its share price continued to rise all year, breaking $3 for the first time since 2007.

ProPrint revealed the Power 50 at an exclusive drinks reception at The Distillery letterpress studio in Sydney on Thursday 29 November.

This year’s Power 50 had an unprecedented 1,500-plus online votes, showing the industry’s support for the ProPrint initiative.

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