14 June 2018

Investment at Carly Press

BPIF member, Carly Press, situated in their new premises in Wellington, Somerset has increased its production capacity after installing two new pieces of kit ahead of an expansion drive that aims to see it hit the M&A trail with a view to doubling in size.

The company, named after the owner's sister who was born the year of the company's launch in 1982 by their grandfather, is primarily digital and wide-format. They have purchased a Horizon SPF/FC-200L booklet maker and a Horizon CRF-362 creaser-folder – both machines were part of a large investment spend with Intelligent Finishing Systems installed in May.

Managing Director Mark Gladstone-Smith said, "We invest in kit every year and are looking to acquire a couple of print companies too currently. When we moved to bigger premises four years ago now, we grew 60% in the first year and 40% the next year. Growth hasn't been as big more recently, but we're still looking at 22% or 23% a year. We want to grow by acquisition and by taking on bigger premises, which would double our size overnight. We try to grow where other printers retreat – some companies don't reinvest in equipment but we do, we took on the Ricoh 9110 last year and are looking at the new HP Indigo 5000 series."

He added, "The Horizon spend was largely triggered because the firm produces a lot of monthly magazines, which put its ageing binding and creasing setup under pressure and limited capacity - previously we had to hand insert anything over 40pp so I decided to reequip the bindery. We do a lot of short-run quick-turnaround jobs with a time of 24 to 48 hours and so keeping them in-house makes everything smoother."

Dawn Reid, Regional Director for the area added, "The growth seen by this company is fantastic, they are a family-run set up and already have 4 Ricoh digital presses, a large-format HP Latex 360 and Epson Stylus which supports their circa £1.2m of sales and their wide customer base."

For further information see: https://www.carlypress.co.uk/