News

Glenn Izzard - 29 July 2010

"More than £800 was raised for the Printing Charity at last night's event,"

Tightwads.

We raised more than that down my local when Sid broke his ankle.

Worried, again - 29 July 2010

£800 ? I bet some of the bar bills approached that!

Shameful.

Glen Perry - 29 July 2010

OMG £800? Thats 40 peeps giving their £20. How many attended?

Thought that this was supposed to be the great and the good of the print world... you're having a laugh....

Glenn Izzard - 29 July 2010

Should have invited the lads from SV.Two.

I hear they're loaded.

Red O Dare - 29 July 2010

I struggled to stay awake watching that. ZZZZZZZ!

Shouldn't it now be the top 50 in print? as so many have gone to the wall.

Tin Pot PR - 29 July 2010

I hear that the directors of Richmond Cavendish are trustees of the Printing Charity and have already spent the £800 you kindly donated to their back pocket.

'Not A Doctor' (NDCT) - 29 July 2010

Any tips to pass on to the rest of us from this great gathering?

I was hoping for something along the lines of "How to grow your business and return profits year after year". Surely there was one person there who has managed that?

What about "How to make millions out of the printed word: be a publisher not a printer."

Or "What to say to the bank manager when the overdraft hits £500 million (e.g. "fancy buying some shares.....?)."

- 29 July 2010

How many will be here next year - can't believe some loss making business men/women are in the top 100 - look at BGP and yet there are a couple of web offset print shops making money.

- 29 July 2010

http://www.printweek.com/business/news/977598/Polestar-defers-pension-payments-10-months/

http://www.printweek.com/business/news/1014404/Polestar-reveals-38m-pre-tax-loss-2009-accounts/

http://www.printweek.com/business/news/1008055/Goodhead-Group-records-187m-loss-predicts-profit-2011/

http://www.printweek.com/business/news/1016609/Pindar-promises-better-68m-2009-loss/

and all the senior people are in the top 100 in fact they are very high up there, I rest my case but who voted for them I can only presume it is the clients that are getting prices well below cost.

Do we not find it amazing that 2 paper merchants are in the top 10 yet no mill people are there.

William Joyce - 30 July 2010

Are there any mill people left in the UK Isa?

Judith Smith - 30 July 2010

Isa, I do not beleive any web offset printer is making any money. The Industry is becoming a joke, and it's our customers who are laughing at us, and it's not their fault. They can only pay what they are quoted and charged. (print management companies aside). The trouble is, if printers start charging what it costs to print, plus a modest profit, customers probably could not afford to print in some cases. It's time for a reality check. It's time for the Printweek Power 100 to live up to their billing and sort this mess out.

'Not A Doctor' (NDCT) - 30 July 2010

Good comment Judith.

ginger prince - 30 July 2010

Think this event is a waste of time anyway - who really cares who the 'Power 100' are? It just seems like a bit of a massaging egos/vanity exercise to me. We only care about our own individual situations - knowing who is 'No.1' isn't going to realistically benefit me in any way, is it??

:-)

Edna Bag - 30 July 2010

Biltcliffes 1.9 came from free print management of course.

Its time the great and the good did something to promote the industry, rather from demonstrating the fine art of plate spinning debts and making excuses for what they have created.

We have been banging on about promotion and what we think should be done for 18 months.  The only positive thing to come out of this is an £800 charity pot from some of the richest in the business. Kinda sums it up don't it. All those Nero's in one room.   

ginger prince - 30 July 2010

The richest do tend to be the tightest, edna, as the saying goes!

Penny Pincher - 30 July 2010

It really isn't worth getting worked up about. The Power 100 is decided on by the PW editorial team using god knows what metrics and measurements. Probably an equation along the lines of: lunches with PW + advertising spend * news/networking + gossip and hot air = power 100 rating.

I know for a fact that some of the listed people are not even contacted until the last minute and it beggars belief how the PW team can rate various aspects of a person from next to no validated research. As shown in the post above - some of these chaps deserve a kicking, not a cocktail party.

Then, for a laugh, there is a public vote, which for some reason is very short lived and poorly publicised - a clear indicator that the public vote has NIL impact on the league tables.

it is very sad that the mainsteam publication in our sector is so very shallow.

ginger prince - 30 July 2010

Spot on Penny.

I find it hard to fathom why our trade magazine seems to think that the sun shines out of certain peoples backsides, despite evidence to the contrary.

Barry Hibbert of Polestar once \(in)famously announced 'there is no such thing as a low price,' which is an incredibly irresponsible thing to say in our sector, yet he is treated as some sort of soothsayer, who will no doubt figure high up in this list of 'big knobs'!

The Mighty Wind - 30 July 2010

[quote user="Judith Smith"]

Isa, I do not beleive any web offset printer is making any money. The Industry is becoming a joke, and it's our customers who are laughing at us, and it's not their fault. They can only pay what they are quoted and charged. (print management companies aside). The trouble is, if printers start charging what it costs to print, plus a modest profit, customers probably could not afford to print in some cases. It's time for a reality check. It's time for the Printweek Power 100 to live up to their billing and sort this mess out.

[/quote] 

Some small ones are making money but they are very tightly managed and highly stressful, close to victorian mill's and often refered to as sweat shops.

Common sense would dictate that sub economic pricing will not last forever so at some point supply and demand changes will result in prices rising to a level where a return can be generated. Along the way more printers will go bust and some customers will too. The web sector is a horrible place to work in now, in all departments staff have been stripped out in an attempt to reduce costs and I doubt there is anyone working within this sector who actually enjoys it any more. The balance between a customer and manufacturer has got completely out of kilter and most manufacturers are reacting to events rather than steering them  in any particular direction.  it is going to take to long for the market to adjust by natural attrition, just as in the past the big producers will have to adjust supply in the form of closures and job losses and turning away bad customers. Everyone knows this, the problem lies in how and where the funding will come from? Quite frankly it would be cheaper for all the major competitors to come together and contribute funds to enable some company's to shut down facilities on a permanent basis...........how bizarre is that?

One thing is for certain one individual manufacturer cannot solve this on there own, it has gone too far for that. Ironically you are only talking about 5 or 6 people needing to see a bigger picture and working for the good of a sector and many of the current problems would start to mend themselves

- 30 July 2010

TMW - Some fair points made - We all know that for a long time there has been far too much web capacity combined with the new gravure facilities in Sheffield and Liverpool yet still further investment has taken place in creating more web capacity.

You have previously identified the lack of any apparent business thinking behind the installation of a couple of 64pp at BGP but they are not the only ones. Polestar putting the ex Quebs 64pp in at Chantry and both York Direct and Pindar putting short grains in.

With decision making like that going on by everyone other than St Ives do you really think any common sense will ever prevail ?

Wouldn't it be better if those small men with large ego's in charge sought other ways to satisfy their craving for power than spending borrowed money on printing presses.

Chris Lewis - 30 July 2010

Very interesting conversation with a very large buyer of web offset print this week. We talked about all of the losses in the UK industry, and they said that if they applied their normal procurement criteria they wouldn't be touching most of the web printers with a barge pole. However, as the majority of these printers seem to be able to sustain huge losses year after year, they were happy to continue to take advantage of low pricing......

Another thing that has struck me since is that the UK printers have the advantage of a weak £ at the moment. So you would have thought that they should be over run with print work from Europe. I am thinking that this isn't particularly the case, so what happens when or if the £ strengthens? Does the amount of work that they do have from Europe drop off dramatically, causing even more over capacity and further price competition?

The Mighty Wind - 30 July 2010

[quote user="Prof. Zellaby"]Polestar putting the ex Quebs 64pp in at Chantry and both York Direct and Pindar putting short grains in.

With decision making like that going on by everyone other than St Ives do you really think any common sense will ever prevail ?

Wouldn't it be better if those small men with large ego's in charge sought other ways to satisfy their craving for power than spending borrowed money on printing presses.[/quote] 

I agree with your general theme Prof, I think the ex Quebs 72pp was probably seen as too much of a bargain to miss but they should have retired older equipment so that productive capacity was balanced especially considering much of the work they won from Q's fall went into gravure at the expense of their own web offset. To be fair the web press mentioned was already in the market and just moved owners but the manufacturers [printers] have played a major part in building up supply over demand and creating a market where customers have too much power. I mentioned BGP in particular because what they were doing was staggering considering the market at the time let alone now, however you are correct others have made just as mad decisions.

The answer to these problems lies directly on the supply side, it is up to the manufacturers to sort out this mess and that means permanently reducing capacity and thus also availability, because it is not just how much a press can produce but what time slots are available on it........less presses less availability.  Will common sense prevail.........no I do not think so, an idiot rarely realises he is one. This market needs restructured and thus managed down, the big company's now would be bought up if they went bust [some would be attractive as pre-packs] so that is not the answer, and who has the money to act as St Ives have. The egos need to study the paper market and follow the template......reduce capacity first, build confidence within the industry and stop grovelling to customers, slap PM in the face, raise prices and re-adjust capacity again if needed........all of this either requires partnership or dictatorship from an old fashioned mogul with  meglamania...........neither is detected yet

Mick Cook - 30 July 2010

what the web sector needs is a good old fashioned cartel like the paper boys are enjoying at the moment - any takers Pindar / York / St Ives et al

The Mighty Wind - 30 July 2010

[quote user="Chris Lewis"]

Very interesting conversation with a very large buyer of web offset print this week. We talked about all of the losses in the UK industry, and they said that if they applied their normal procurement criteria they wouldn't be touching most of the web printers with a barge pole. However, as the majority of these printers seem to be able to sustain huge losses year after year, they were happy to continue to take advantage of low pricing......

Another thing that has struck me since is that the UK printers have the advantage of a weak £ at the moment. So you would have thought that they should be over run with print work from Europe. I am thinking that this isn't particularly the case, so what happens when or if the £ strengthens? Does the amount of work that they do have from Europe drop off dramatically, causing even more over capacity and further price competition?

[/quote] 

Not surprising really however it should not be seen as a passive exercise by the customer. This lunacy will not continue forever and at some point will restructure either by major collapses or by interventions. For instance what would happen if BGP shut and walstead collapsed at near enough the same time? or any other combinations of plants and company's dramatically changed. And it is no longer a case of price but availability of production? This market is so skewed and under so much pressure that it could distort in any direction. Also many buyers/publishers have left there own problems alone because the low prices has relieved pressure on them.

As far as Europe is concerned, in this sector more work leaves these shores than enters it. Frankly there is more loyalty over the water than here........You will of course hear different voices on this and of course your own opinion may be different to mine. There has been little work won from Europe and most of it has been Gravure thus when it goes back [and most of it is moving already] the impact will not be catastrophic.

- 30 July 2010

Mick, Pindar/York/St Ives would not have to travel far to meet up perhaps they could meet at the Viking Centre in York, maybe then they would be able to see what era their pricing is from.

'Not A Doctor' (NDCT) - 30 July 2010

[quote user="Isa Prat"]perhaps they could meet at the Viking Centre in York[/quote]

Good location, Isa, but I fear that none of them could afford the admission price.

Edna Bag - 30 July 2010

TMW, the lunacy can't last forever I agee with that.  The turning point is so damn close and its one lunatic fringe in the way.

The other worry is the web effect is appearing in the sheetfed market, have seen prices with paper at 60%+ 

It makes you wonder just what it will take, web can't go any lower despite what the clients may wish. Chris's comment is sad at many levels, but also maybe shows that clients don't want, or can't connect their part in all this mess any more than they themselves have longterm plans. There is far too many (or few) short sighted views, ego's and death wishes involved.

The stupid thing is the web companies could easily meet as already said, they should have done years ago. 

- 30 July 2010

NDCT, I think it is the parking that kills it due to their cars that take up 2 spaces.

'Not A Doctor' (NDCT) - 02 August 2010

This sums it up perfectly:

"Forget highly paid CEOs. It's ants and bees who can lead us to the economic promised land"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/7919177/Forget-highly-paid-CEOs.-Its-ants-and-bees-who-can-lead-us-to-the-economic-promised-land.html

The Mighty Wind - 02 August 2010

 NDCT

welcome to the world of socio-economics/business.

EDNA

the volume model needs to die, we need to concentrate on what is best for print and leave its customers to decide what is best for them.