More details have emerged about private equity owner Champ’s sale of the group’s Australian business, including Webstar Australia.
Selig told ProPrint that he had taken the role of managing director with immediate effect, a position he vacated in 2007 following the sale of the group to Champ in 2006.
This sees Phillip Bower leave the role at Blue Star Australia, though it is thought Bower will continue to oversee the sales process in New Zealand.
Blue Star Australia managing director Roger Gray has also departed, said Selig.
The group’s new senior management team includes Geoff and Paul Selig and Mike Shannon, managing director of the Selig’s web offset firm, CaxtonWeb.
Geoff Selig said: “We are delighted once again to have the opportunity of working with the talented and committed team at Blue Star, our suppliers and our customers. The business has a market-leading value proposition and we look forward to evolving this further with our customers over the coming years.”
He said the group’s “immediate focus will be on communication: communicating with our customers, staff and suppliers in terms of the ownership change, given the sales process has been fairly concentrated. We will be taking the next month to build the knowledge across the business in terms of the move forward.”
Selig said the deal had been “fully funded by the shareholders”.
“There is no external debt on our balance sheet.”
Blue Star is being run as a going concern, said Selig. “Everyone is keeping their job. We will pay the creditors in the normal course. We have bought the legal entity so it is business as usual.”
He called the buyout a “joint ownership” between his business, CaxtonWeb, and Wolseley.
Wolseley managing director James Todd said: “Importantly, the strength of our balance sheet provides financial security for all stakeholders and will further support our continued investment in leading-edge technologies that provide a broad range of innovative communications solutions.”
The private equity firm took a share in Stream Solutions in 2000 when it was turning over $10 million. Stream was sold to Toll Group in 2006 and 2007, by which time the print manager was turning over $120 million.
Wolseley is also involved in print media through its stake in publishing house Next Media, the fourth largest magazine publisher in the country after ACP Magazines, Pacific Magazines and News Life Media.
[Related: More news about private equity in print]
Clarification: ProPrint previously reported Wolseley had “acquired Stream Solutions in 2000”. In fact, Wolseley only had a minority stake in the print management group.
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