Financial backing has come from Wolseley Private Equity. The price of the deal is undisclosed, however Blue Star’s owner Champ Private Equity will have made a huge loss on the business it bought in 2007 for $NZ375m. That figure included the Kiwi arm, which is not part of the Selig deal.
The new management team at Blue Star will include both Selig brothers, both of whom were formerly CEOs of Blue Star, and Mike Shannon, the current managing director of CaxtonWeb, who was himself a former CEO of Blue Star.
Geoff Selig says, “We are delighted once again to have the opportunity of working with the talented and committed team at Blue Star, our suppliers and our customers. The business has a market leading value proposition and we look forward to evolving this further with our customers over the coming years”
Blue Star is the country;s fourth biggest printer, after PMP, IPMG and Geon. The Blue Star Group includes web offset, sheetfed and digital printing, print management, direct mail and print logistics businesses to customers including Australian and multinational companies in banking, insurance, advertising, publishing, retailing and the government sector. Blue Star Australia employs more than 700 staff with operations in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra
Wolseley managing director James Todd says, “Importantly, the strength of our balance sheet provides financial security for all stakeholders and will further support our continued investment in leading edge technologies that provide a broad range of innovative communications solutions”
Blue Star was acquired by Champ in 2007, which intended to consolidate the business further and float it on the stock market. However the GFC torpedoed the plan, and the owners found making money from print significantly harder than financial engineering. A series of relaunches over the past two years have failed to address Blue Star’s problems, Champ has been actively looking for a buyer for the past three months.
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