Stephen Anstice, chief executive of the Hannan family’s $489m-turnover print group, said the decision to close Craft came after a review he conducted with Hannanprint managing director Tony Dedda.
The restructure was first mooted in November 2011.
The closure comes because it is “no longer financially viable for [Craft] to keep producing Hannanprint’s sheetfed work”.
“Aggressive and unsustainable pricing in the sheetfed market means the necessary capital investment required at Craft cannot be financially justified,” Anstice said in a statement.
“Redundancies of 46 will be progressive and it is envisaged that the Craft Alexandria facility will be fully shut down by 31 March 2012.”
Anstice told ProPrint that while some of Craft’s work would be outsourced externally, he expected most of it to go to fellow IPMG companies Offset Alpine and Inprint.
He said there would be no problem disposing of Craft’s equipment. Its only major machine, a KBA perfecting press, was leased and so would be returned, he added.
IPMG announced it would try to find jobs for Craft’s 46 employees within IPMG, but Anstice said he didn’t yet know how many of them would be retained.
Anstice said the sheetfed industry was too crowded for its own good. “It’s non-commercial in my opinion. We don’t have that situation in the web market.”
He described the decision to close Craft as “sad and unfortunate” but commercially necessary.
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I hope the leased machine doesn’t bounce back into the Australian market. Sad for those folks impacted by job losses, but it’s good to see some good business sense applied here. CHAMP and Greshams should take note. I guess thats the difference in decision making when the costs are coming out of your own pocket rather than an investment fund.