Commercial printer sees increase in profits and revenue
Commercial printer Grafenia saw a 40% increase in turnover to £14.6, over the last 12 months.
The Stretford based business also enjoyed a 27% increase in profits to £8.3m.
The firm finished the year with a cash position of £170,000 and net debt of £3.04m after spending capital investment of a net £1.1m plus consideration of £2.61m for the acquisition of Image Group.
The company said its results were heavily impacted by the inclusion of newly acquired sign firms, most notably Image Group.
Grafenia chairman Jan-Hendrik Mohr gave a frank assessment of the firm’s performance.
He said: “Litho print revenues have been declining. This has mainly been due to decreasing prices in the marketplace.
“Given that a significant part of our production cost is fixed, any decrease in print revenues immediately causes our contribution margin to decline.
“This has been the case for many years and we do not expect this to change. It has been a significant drag on profitability in the last year. The only good news is that our reliance on profits from litho print are decreasing every day.”
He added: “Licence revenues have been increasing. First and foremost, you can thank our Nettl team leaders for relentlessly driving partner acquisition and partner development.
“Only a few years after launching, Nettl now helps more than 150 partners in the UK to offer better design products to their clients.
“Nettl has also been showing quite encouraging signs internationally, especially in the Netherlands.
“Our company-owned stores are improving, but are still not where we would like them to be.
“The good news is that our store performance has increased a lot over the last fiscal year.
“The bad news is overall it’s still not where it needs to be. Some stores are losing money, partly due to the terms of leases signed many years back.
“I strongly believe that improving own studio performance is the proverbial lowest hanging fruit.”
The firm said current trading is mixed.
Print revenues continue to be under pressure and are hard to predict in the short-term.
Meanwhile, the firm continues to talk to many sign businesses and is looking at several joining the business.
