ATKINSON NEW CEO AT PEGASUS
The board at AAB has made Mark Atkinson the new CEO at print powerhouse Pegasus Media & Logistics, succeeding Kevin Slaven who has now retired, with a new CFO, Frank Shapter, also in place.
Atkinson joined Pegasus last June as general manager of operations, coming from Ovato, and with a 27 year track record in print, including a stint at MAPS, which was bought by AAB, the Pegasus owner, some twenty years ago. In addition to his role at Ovato he also worked in senior roles at Rotary Offset Press, Williams Lea, Offset Alpine, Griffin Press, and PMP.
Frank Shapter has joined the business as chief financial officer, responsible for all finance and administration areas of the business. He succeeds Harry Dingle, who was in the role for the past six years. The AAB board says that Shapter “will be a driving force in assisting Mark in positioning the business in its next phase of growth and evolution.” The company also changed financiers just before Christmas.
The changes at the top follow the completion of the consolidation of the manufacturing sites to Blacktown, and the establishment of the new warehouse at North St Mary's last year. They also follow the departure of general manager Michael Schulz in November. He was in the role for 18 months, and prior to that spent 30 years with SOS before its acquisition by Pegasus, heading operations and sales, but once the consolidation was complete the Pegasus role essentially became redundant. Also leaving at the end of the year was Pegasus sales manager Ross Muirhead, who is now state sales manager for QLM Label Makers.
Slaven had been in the role at Pegasus since May 2022, he succeeded long time CEO Wayne Finkelde who retired after 23 years, with Slaven joining after leading Ovato as CEO through four turbulent years, prior to that he was CEO at IPMG before the merger with PMP, also for four years. However after just 18 months at Pegasus he has gone.
With sales of $80m Pegasus is in the top tier of independent Australian print businesses. It has some 200 staff now consolidated into its Blacktown site, which has four offset presses, including a pair of ten-colour B1s, and a massive Roland 806, used for display work. Manufacturing runs 24 hours a day, five days a week. It recently invested in a new inkjet cutsheet Canon VarioPrint iX3200 for its Digital Centre, one of the country's largest on-demand book printing operations, and it has a battery of wide-format print equipment.
Eighteen months ago the main AAB print businesses – Pegasus Print Group and SOS Print + Media – along with F&M Supplies and AB Warehousing & Logistics began operating as one brand, Pegasus Media & Logistics.
AAB is majority owned by Singapore-based Sir Michael Bromley, through his Redwing vehicle, which has interests in many fields, with Gerry Anderson, the other shareholder, having a minority stake.