York Mailing acquires The Lettershop Group
YORK Mailing has increased its turnover to almost £100m with the acquisition of Yorkshire rival The Lettershop Group.
The move, which comes after a £10m investment in York Mailing by the Business Growth Fund (BGF) last month, sees it buy Leeds-based The Lettershop Group (TLG) from owner John Hornby.
The business was founded in 1886 and has 200 employees and turnover of £20m.
The deal brings together Elvington-based York Mailing, which is the largest supplier of printed products including flyers, media inserts and catalogues to UK retailers including Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Lidl and Boden, with TLG which had historically focused on direct mailing for the financial services industry but has since expanded into the retail sector and now offers a wide range of marketing services including data analytics, marketing strategy and digital media for customers include Marks & Spencer, Sky and Tesco.
The enlarged business will boast 500 staff across three sites and will be able to offer a hybrid digital and web offset printing platform which it said will offer significant technological advantage over competitors.
David McGolpin and Simon Cooper will remain in the TLG business as joint managing directors and will continue to use their expertise to grow TLG as part of the larger group.
Chris Ingram, CEO of York Mailing, commented: “We have long admired TLG as a business given its outstanding client base and hybrid digital and web offset printing capabilities. It is a natural fit within the York Mailing business and we look forward to being able to offer customers an enhanced range of promotional printing services. This type of deal was a significant undertaking for us a management team and the financial backing and operational support provided by BGF has been invaluable.”
Richard Taylor, BGF, commented: “This is a fantastic example of BGF’s capital being put to good use; an ambitious management team leading an expanding business but with a desire to grow that bit further and offer customers that bit more. When we started discussions with Chris and Mike prior to our investment, they flagged that this acquisition would be a significant part of the strategy and rationale behind taking equity investment and it is great to see the plan come to fruition.”
John Hornby, owner of TLG added: “I am delighted that the York Mailing Group of companies has acquired The Lettershop Group and along with Simon and David, I think this is the perfect home for The Lettershop business. I firmly believe that being part of the UK’s most dynamic print provider offers a real opportunity for TLG to extend their leading technology to a broader customer base.”
Advisers on the deal included Yorkshire law firm Lupton Fawcett Lee & Priestley, accountants Grant Thornton and corporate finance advisers DC Advisory.
The York Mailing Group is made up of two web offset printing companies – York Mailing, which specialises in the production of retail flyers and media inserts and Pindar Scarborough, which specialises in the production of high quality catalogues, principally for the online retail market.
York Mailing was co-founded by chief executive Chris Ingram in 1999 and is managed by him and chief operating officer Mike Newbould.
They have since grown the business organically and through the acquisition of niche print specialists, including buying the trade and assets of the web offset printing and bindery division of Scarborough-based Pindar in 2011, to become the largest supplier of print to the UK retail sector.
The acquisition comes a month after the BGF invested £10m of growth capital in the company and took a minority stake.
The BGF, backed by five of the main UK banks, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS, and Standard Chartered, invests between £2m and £10m in businesses in return for a minority equity stake and a seat on the board for a BGF director.
