Read the first installment of  "Is Consolidation The Future?"

Consolidation is a major trend within the printing industry, and it has been going on for some years now. In these hard economic times with many companies going out of business it has been logical for the stronger companies to take over the weaker ones to inherit their clients and some of their staff and equipment. In certain cases even a company’s name shows how it has come about, as is the case with Consolidated Graphics in the USA. Consolidation is often necessary because of over capacity that brings about cost reductions as weaker companies attempt to stay in business by cutting prices, and in these cases the stronger companies are forced to absorb the weaker companies to protect their own pricing and market position.

In Europe and in particular the UK, the magazine printing industry has been consolidating for some time following a period of rapid expansion as many magazine printers invested heavily in the latest presses to try to expand their businesses. With the downturn that has been happening in magazine printing over many years there have been both failures of major magazine printers as well as a degree of consolidation. The latest and biggest consolidation of magazine printers in the UK has just happened. In this St Ives Group, one of the largest printing companies in the UK has agreed to sell its magazine operations to private equity firm Walstead Investments for £20 million. St Ives Web has three large web offset production plants employing almost 700 staff and had an annual turnover in the last financial year of £70.5million. On this it made a loss of £5.1million.