News
Former owners buy Goodman Baylis assets
Goodman Baylis' assets have been sold for an undisclosed sum to former owners Clive Parkes and Roger Muir, after administrator Harris Lipman was unable to sell the business as a going concern.
Former chairman Parkes, who sold Goodman Baylis to Media & Print Investments (MPI) in January, was named as a potential buyer on 11 November.
All 120 staff at the firm have now been made redundant, following the completion of work in progress.
Joint administrators Freddy Khalastchi and Michaela Hall, who were appointed on 31 October, said that poor market conditions had prevented a sale of the business.
Khalastchi said: "In the current economic climate, there was very little interest in the business as most printing companies have spare capacity which they cannot fill.
"We were therefore only able to sell our interest in the assets of the company. The landlords hope that they will find a printing business that wishes to use the facility, which is one of the most respected in the country."
Muir and Parkes, who have bought the plant and machinery, fixtures and fittings of Goodman Baylis, also own the site from which the company traded.
For more see next week's PrintWeek.
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Comments
Ian T. Cooper - 22 November 2008
Good news at last. Best wishes to Clive and Roger.
Clive ring me or I will try to contact you.
Ian
Mike Wilce - 22 November 2008
I hope you peeps are successful.. I really do..
Fred Smith - 23 November 2008
Goodman Baylis was respected, but remember who it was that sold out to MPI....Parkes!!
There is no respect for him! If the place starts up again lets hope he is not in charge, he will soon loose interest....no change there.
I wish the best of luck to those that are out of work facing a grim Christmas.
Parkes just needs to get himself out of the mire.
Brian Kemp - 23 November 2008
This sounds a bit weird. They own the site, the business has closed and if they are like most other printers they don't own any of the machines so what did they buy that they didn't already own? Another case of an administrator churning out spin to justify their doubtlessly not insignificant fees.
The Mighty wind - 23 November 2008
I am with you brian, this trade is the new second hand car trade soon every printer will have hitching posts instead of car parks. As for administrators don't get me started!!!
Mark Townsend - 24 November 2008
Goodman Baylis was a quality printers with a great team. When Clive sold it to MPI they were buying up all these other printers and spouting off about being in the top 10 printers in the print week list and there was no evidence to think ill of them. It was only a few months after they bought GB that people realised MPI stood for Making Printers Insolvent. If it wasn't for what went on at Butler & Tanner GB would have been closed months ago. The sale to Searle and Hardy was just a smoke screen to hide all the MPI mess. I hope Clive & Roger can make something good happen out of this.
john stone - 24 November 2008
Lets have a few more posative comments regarding the former directors re-purchasing goodmans . It wasnt without its weaknesses but these were mostly minor internal organisation problems . As a former employee i earned quite a good living from the company albeit i never had a wage rise in the three years i worked there . It had a 1st class workforce and i would pitch their skills against other sheetfed printers in the land , they are quite simply as good as the best ! . Lets hope it could be the phoenix rising from the ashes ? . Good luck to all my workmates
Robin Devereux - 24 November 2008
To Clive and Roger - I hope you can bring back the spark you had in Birmingham - there are hard times ahead but you have been there before and sailed through it - good luck to you both.
Fred Smith - 24 November 2008
Ah Mr Devereux, You must have worked for every printer in the land by now.\(some of them twice!)
It won't be easy to get GB back on its feet, who would supply a company that had gone bust twice in a year, and all the sales will have gone by now.
john stone - 24 November 2008
P.S Posative is spelt positive but i sent the comment then couldnt correct it . no pisstakers please . oh go on then !
Robin Devereux - 24 November 2008
Well Martin \( sorry, Fred) it may well be true that I have worked at 9 printers over the past 32 years and yes two of them twice! \(3 went bust) but that still does not detract from the fact that, certainly in Birmingham, Goodmans had a reputation for high quality print of a wide product range and good customer care. I agree with you that it wont be easy to get it back on it's feet, but I wish them well and hope that some of the people laid off last month will have a more positive outlook for 2009.
Bryn Oakley - 24 November 2008
They own the site, now they own the assets \(presumably some presses in the mix, they used to run the company, so know every coustomer, probably by their first names. I think they have been very astute in buying just the assets and not the company as a going concern \(which it now isn't); they can now cut their cloth according to the number of od customers they win back.
Very cute, as they will lose the ones they don't want.
I agree liquidators and adminstrators are the leaches that stop the genuine debtors getting at least something back. i am yet to see a bill from one of them \(as seen in many a liquidators letters from ex customers) that doesn't charge at least £250 per HOUR for their services. There should be a watchdog that limits ALL fees of this sort to what the normal service provider charges, with a maximum of £100 per hour for the top person, and £25 per hour for the normal one. I would LOVE to see a liquidator go out of business!But it isn't going to happen, is it?
Back to this situation, good luck to the 'new' owners, please make it work this time, as you no doubt did before, but DON'T sell it as soon as it is back on it's feet! At least for the sake of all those loyal workers you employed last time round. They don't deserve that. Build them a Company to be proud of.
Bryn Oakley - 24 November 2008
Spilling mistakes are easy when you tipe fast aren't they?
Charlie Minnot - 24 November 2008
The trouble is Bryn and Martin ,sorry Fred, you are talking about a reputation that mattered light years ago to customers that have not placed work in Worcester for a decade. It does not matter whether it's Clive or anyone else who buys it, the business has expired as a viable entity, a product of excess capacity and old practice. That doesn't excuse the Administartors from being the real villans of the piece and grabbing whatever is left but that appears to be the way it will be unless we get a chapter 11 type of situation where unsecured creditors have some form of protection.
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