Mark Shergill has added another $2m in sales to his Sydney business, buying Liverpool Printing Service, his fourth acquisition of the year.
The Moorebank factory has already been shut down, and owner Terry Strudwick has moved to Focus Print Group’s Strathfield South site to transition his clients.
Strudwick, who inherited Liverpool in the 1980s from his father-in-law Athol Bolton, says it was time to call it a day on the 48-year-old printer.
“The machines I have are quite old, the market was getting tougher, and I would have needed to pour a lot of my own money in to survive,” he says.
“I was not prepared to do that as I have been in the industry 30 years, so I started talking to equipment dealers to value my equipment.
“Word got out and Mark called me with an offer, and we had a deal in a couple of weeks.”
[Related: More mergers and acquisitions]
Strudwick says Liverpool’s operations are 70 per cent offset and 30 per cent digital. Most of the kit will be sold off, including a Roland 600 six-colour and several Heidelberg GTOs, with a few minor newer pieces to be kept.
He says all eight of his staff were made redundant,with all but two founding new jobs and one of those retired as he is 65. “That made me feel better about my decision,” Strudwick says.
Strudwick is meeting with his bigger clients to bring them over to Focus, and says so far all over them are happy about the change and will come along.
“I have always been a hands-on manager so I have strong relationships with many of my clients, and they feel better than I will continue to be part of it,” he says.
“My clients will have many more options with Focus, and online ordering is something I am particularly excited about as I couldn’t get into it before.”
Liverpool offered general commercial printing plus magazines, catalogues, packaging, labels, and point-of-sale up to A1 size. It also has full in-house finishing and prepress.
The acquisition is Shergill’s fourth of the year following AP & Prior, Whitehorse Digital, and Rainbow Printing.
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