Xerox buys Go Inspire

Headley: thrilled to join the Xerox team
Headley: thrilled to join the Xerox team

Industry giant Xerox has swooped to acquire Go Inspire as it looks to expand its Digital Services business worldwide.

The deal was confirmed on 5 July. 

CEO Patrick Headley, who helmed an MBO six years ago backed by private equity house GIL Investments, remains with the business following the sale, as does the management team. 

He said: “We are thrilled to join the Xerox team and eager to contribute to the growth of Xerox Digital Services.

“Together with Xerox, we will expand the portfolio of high value services for our expanding client base throughout the UK and beyond.”

As well as a domestic client base of blue-chip clients, Go Inspire also serves customers throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“I’m honoured and delighted and look forward to working with Xerox. It’s great for us and it’s great for them as well,” Headley told Printweek.

Leicester-headquartered Go Inspire had sales of £51.8m with EBITDA of £5m in the pandemic-impacted year to 31 March 2021. Headley said that in the 2021/22 financial year, sales had bounced back to £72m with EBITDA of £7.5m.

Darren Cassidy, UK and Ireland managing director and senior vice president, EMEA Global Document Services at Xerox, said the business wanted to widen the scope of Xerox's Digital Services and Customer Engagement Services offering. 

He said: "Go Inspire's capabilities will support the transformation of our transactional and direct mail services into multi-channel communications, accelerate growth in EMEA and create new avenues for us to help current and new clients."

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Go Inspire provides marketing performance and transactional communication services and runs a wide range of high-speed printing and finishing kit including HP PageWide T-series inkjet webs and Bowe inserting and enclosing kit. 

The group won an Innovation of the Year award for Direct Mail at this year's Printweek Awards. 

Clients include major retailers including Tesco and John Lewis, utilities including British Gas and E.on, and media and telecoms firms BT, TalkTalk and Sky. The group also works with a number of specialist agencies. 

Xerox had sales of just under $7.04bn (£5.9bn) last year. The group is coming to terms with the sad loss of its CEO John Visentin, whose death was announced last week.