David Francis, general manager of Beaver Press, had told ProPrint only last night that the company was not in administration.

However, his father, managing director Robert Francis, today confirmed that PKF had been appointed administrators yesterday.

Robert Francis said that all Beaver’s staff had been sent home, adding that “eight or nine” positions would be found for some of them at Chippendale.

“Several of them have got positions and a lot of them don’t,” he said, adding that he would be stepping back from the business.

The “merger” with Chippendale is said to currently be at the ‘heads of agreement’ stage and still needs to be approved by Chippendale’s board of directors and its private equity owners, Helmsman Funds Management.

It is unclear how the reports of this “merger” stack up amid news of Beaver’s move into administration.

However, David Francis said last night that several “key personnel” from Beaver have already begun moving into Chippendale’s Concord West headquarters.

He added that they “should be set up in the next few days”.

Under the deal, Beaver’s offset operations will be merged wholly into Chippendale, though the majority of Beaver’s offset equipment, which includes eight and 10-colour presses, is likely to be sold rather than moved to Concord West.

Beaver’s Redfern facility will become the headquarters of digital printing business Good Crowd Printing, which is also owned and operated by the Francis family.

David Francis (pictured) said Good Crowd, which formerly traded as Snap Printing The Rocks, is a “very strong entity” and would be “working strategically with Chippendale”.

Beaver is understood to have been on the lookout for a merger partner or buyer for some time. Two weeks, ago, Standard Publishing House confirmed to ProPrint it had been holding discussions with Beaver.

David Francis last night admitted Beaver had been impacted by the global financial crisis and downturn in the sheetfed sector.

“We were in a situation where we were slightly overcapitalised at the time. We’d geared ourselves up for the sheetfed magazine market, and then that market changed and shifted and we had to change and shift with it,” he said.

The future of both Beaver and Chippendale have been subject to much speculation in recent months, though Chippendale managing director Fred Van Steel was adamant that his company has not been in any financial trouble.

“Quite the contrary, Chippendale has had very strong support from Helmsman, who are continuing to provide strong financial support,” he told ProPrint.

Van Steel said Chippendale had been attracted to “the quality of Beaver’s customer base and the customer service relationships” it had cultivated with its clients.

Administrators PKF were unavailable at time of writing.

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