Merry Christmas from AP

Merry Christmas to all of our readers, Australian Printer wishes the best for your holiday period, and for the year to come.

It has been a huge year for print in Australia, with the completion of the PMP IPMG merger.

Visual Impact and PacPrint both running, the BJ Ball and KW Doggett merger, IVE building a new greenfield plant for Franklin Web, and buying SEMA and Dominion

A touted merger between outdoor giants oOh!media and APN Outdoor was rejected by the ACCC, over concerns of a potential monopoly in the outdoor signage segment.

It was not only the behemoths which merged in 2017, as there were many printers that acquired competitors, and capabilities in new areas.

Docklands Ability Group rebranded itself to Waratah Group, Bright Print Group bought Oxford Communications, Mark Shergill’s Focus Print Group added to its long list of acquisitions, and more recently trade printer Whirlwind picked up Lindsay Yates. US based WestRock acquired Australian packaging outfit Hannapak while Anzpac was bought by a Hong Kong investor.

The year had its share of casualties though, with printers still shutting up shop, or being forced to. Sydney’s Western Graphics closed its doors, as did Print Dynamics, Barella Forme Cutting, Ezibinder, Pacific Printing, Waivestar and Hygrade.

Some of Australian print’s best and brightest called and end to their careers in 2017, with Michael Warshall retiring earlier this week, Fairfax newspaper veteran Bob Lockley finishing in November, on the same day as PMP’s Peter George, Steve Dunwell of manroland retired in February, while APN CEO Richard Herring retired in September.

The future of the industry looks increasingly female, as women were strongly represented at the biennial Graduate of the Year Awards, Sarah Kennedy from Colorcorp in QLD, Laura Burgett from Spatial Services in NSW, and Jayd Kiely from APN Print in NSW. with South Australian Chloe Rudd named as the winner, beating the inner-city graduates while working at Print DNA, based in Renmark, regional SA.

That’s it for this year from all of us at Australian Printer, Happy Christmas, and we will see you all back in 2018.

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