The transactional giant lost hundreds of workers during its five-week administration, but new managing director John Stewart said the redundancies had stopped since he led a four-management buyout (MBO) in June.
“There have been no layoffs. The MBO plan is going according to expectations. We started with the right number of staff. We’ve actually hired – particularly in the sales area – and we’re trying to engage with the workforce on a much more regular basis,” he told ProPrint.
Stewart said the new leadership team had worked hard to reassure the 250 remaining staff that SEMA was now secure and set for an exciting future.
He also confirmed that the company was “on a firm financial footing” and would return to profit in September.
“We’ve significantly reduced our cost base. We’ve got back to what we do well and profitably. We’ve dropped overly ambitious reengineering plans,” he said.
The previous company collapsed with up to $7.3 million of debt, and much of these liabilities remain with the former entity. However, Stewart said the new team had taken over some debt.
“It’s not true that we haven’t taken on the debt. We haven’t taken on the unsecured creditors. We’ve taken on the employee liabilities for 250 staff, the lease of the Impika [inkjet press] and some of the other leases for the operating machines.
“We’ve ended up with a lot of the old debt. The really important thing is that 250 people’s jobs were preserved,” he added.
Stewart said the combination of improved staff morale and a sound business model had set the company up for a promising year.
“We think our sales pipeline looks strong… We look like we’ve having a very busy first quarter. That quarter after Christmas isn’t visible to us yet, but if we’re on budget or a little better for that March quarter, then I think that next 12 months looks reasonably encouraging for us.”
He told ProPrint that that might mean hiring more staff – although “only in line with our ability to grow our sales”.
Click here to read ProPrint‘s feature on John Stewart.
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