Following the battle for control of the failed Media Options business between former owner Bhaskar Datta’s sister-in-law Amy Chandra and trade printer CMYKhub, and news that Datta is sending targeted emails to printers for Sureprint-owned business Sydney Trade Print (STP), Chandra has written to ProPrint giving her side of the story.
Below is the letter as it was written to us, edited only to add paragraph spacing for readability:
We at Sureprint are amused and thankful as to the amount of free advertising you are providing our company and intrigued as to where you get you misinformation that you are printing about our company. Most of it is wrong. Is that by accident or design?
The vitriol and emotional language you use in your articles appears to indicate a definite bias and agenda.
Are you able to advise us who are providing you with your material? It wouldn’t be one of our competitors, by chance?
To this point we have not replied to your barrage of half-truths and libel.
That would only dignify your fantasies, and give credence to your outpourings.
In the circumstances with your latest fiction we are obtaining legal advice.
Just to put the record straight please note the following:
1. Sureprint was started in 2012, by an independent person using funds honestly obtained. This occurred one year prior to Media Options being liquidated.
2. It is an irrelevant and an obvious smear campaign by you, and to point out that the owner of Sureprint is related to the owner of Media Options is nobody’s business. Are you attempting to infer that your allegations of bad character and impropriety by the Owners of Media Options are characteristics of the owners of Sureprint?
3. Last time we checked Australia is still a free country and Sureprint is entitled to employ whosoever they wish without being accountable.
4. Sureprint is a privet company and its business is just that, PRIVATE.
Should you have any allegations of impropriety that you wish to make against the owners of Sureprint please do so boldly and unequivocally in the public forum. Not in the cowardly way you do.
Your actions would then give Sureprint the right of reply in the appropriate arena.
Sureprint commenced operations in June 2012, approximately 15 months before Media Operations Group was placed into voluntary administration. The company is funded entirely by the sole beneficial shareholder and sole director, Amy Chandra.
Sureprint has a team of high powered management staff with many years of experience in printing industry coming from large successful printing business. Sureprint also came to the rescue of some ex-employees of Media Options Group and offered employment to them.
Sydney Trade Print is a registered business name owned by Sureprint Pty Ltd and not a separate legal entity. One would have thought your research would have discovered that, but in the light of your fantasies such an assumption may not be logical. It was registered on 7th November 2013. It was not set up after the last creditors meeting of Media Options Group in August 2014, as claimed by ProPrint.
Sydney Trade Printers offers an alternative to print resellers to buy at cheaper prices instead of from other larger trade printers. For example, 10,000 DI flyers printed 2 sides on 150gsm gloss art are being sold from $110+GST+freight.
A well-known trade printer in Sydney is selling the same for $361+GST including freight which is approximately 3 times more than our price. Let the print resellers make their own mind as to which option is financially more beneficial to them instead of downgrading Sureprint.
Any decisions Sureprint makes as to the locations of its printing business are made for rational economic reasons and not due to decisions made at creditors meetings of Media Options Group.
Any equipment that has been moved from Bankstown to Revesby is owned by Sureprint. The location of equipment owned by Media Options Group (in liquidation) can be ascertained by contacting the Liquidator.
Sureprint employs a number of consultants in a part-time capacity including Bhaskar Datta. Is this anybody’s business but the parties involved?
I would prefer a fair go from the printing industry and Australians in general. I am facing roadblocks everywhere I turn. Your articles seem to have contributed in no small way to those roadblocks. … I am a Woman in Print – so I am not taken seriously.
I am related to some failed business people – so I am discriminated against. People allege that the business is not mine. How can that be when my money, my propertied and my assets are on the line?
Blacklisting people by relationship is pure discrimination. How many people have had failed businesses in the last 12 months, last 5 years, last 10 years? Are we saying that all relatives of those thousands of people should be blacklisted due to that association and should not be given a fair go in Australia? Or is it just me?
Put yourself in my shoes and then decide whether I am being given a fair go. I have been in the printing industry for over 20 years and it has been my dream to be own a successful printing business. The recent events and news are very disappointing. However, I am a woman. I am strong. And I will succeed.
I will be extremely disappointed should you decide not to publish my reply in full.
Yours sincerly, Amy Chandra, Sureprint Pty Ltd
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