Bemrose Booth goes into administration

Dawinderpal Sahota, Computing, Tuesday 29 June 2010 at 14:44:00

Declining profitability in saturated market causes printing company to call
in administrators

Bemrose Booth, a specialist printing company based in England, has gone into
administration.

The company was the largest supplier of car parking tickets in the UK, with
high-profile customers such as NCP. It also manufactured rail tickets and
revealed plans to invest in new technologies such as RFID and SMART to increase
its expertise in the ticketing arena.

It has suffered from the over-capacity prevailing in the printing market,
much like other large companies in this field, according to insolvency
practitioner David Rubin and Partners LLP in London. Two of the firm?s partners
have been appointed joint administrators for Bemrose Booth.

The company?s woes have been fuelled by declining profitability in fields
such as scratchcards for the telecoms industry, where markets and production
have moved to developing nations as production costs are much lower.

Its calendar business, based in Derby, has also been hit by declining margins
in the promotional products and secure mail businesses. Production issues with
the business led to those parts of the company being closed last week, resulting
in 160 redundancies. A further 26 redundancies in Hull followed the decision to
stop producing telecom scratchcards in Hull, according to David Rubin and
Partners LLP.

?The emphasis now is on saving those viable parts of the business and
preserving the jobs of the remaining workforce,? said David Rubin, joint
administrator.

?We are dealing with a high-quality and profitable operation and are
confident that a sale can be achieved. Everybody concerned has a part to play in
achieving that."

The company operated two sites in Derby, one in Hull and another in Teesside.
It employed about 650 staff two years ago but reduced its headcount to 350 in
the past 12 months.

The remaining divisions in Hull, where 125 people are employed, and the
operation in Teesside, which employs 34 people, are trading normally while bu
yers are sought for the business as a going concern. A significant level of
interest has been expressed in the business and talks with a number of
interested parties are ongoing.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2265646/bemrose-booth-goes