The administrator McGrathNichol was unavailable for comment as i-grafix went to press, but is thought to be aiming to keep the company going. Worldwide works on a hub and spoke model, with each independent franchisee store having limited, usually digital, production capacity, and sending offset work and other jobs to the franhisor-owned hubs, which operate in most capital cities.

Things looked rosy for the group until relatively recently, as Worldwide competed effectively and grew faster than rival franchise operations Snap, Kwik Kopy, FedEx Kinkos, We Print It and Miinuteman. Worldwide opened a $1.5m digital hub in Brisbane 18 months ago, and at the same time doubled the size of its offset hub in Sydney with its first A1 press. However since then the GFC has hit print hard, and Worldwide has clearly suffered. Revenues reached more than $60m before the onset of the GFC.

Worldwide has been through several CEOs in recent times, Mark Mandersen was in the hot seat following its purchase by Nevis Capital from founder Clive Denholm, until last week the CEO was Duncan McKenzie, now long-time Worldwide senior manager Ron Dallimore is CEO, although working under the auspices of the administrator.

Ironically the news comes as former owner Denholm has announced plans to open his second trade print house, he already runs CMYKhub in Victoria, the new business will be in NSW.

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