WAYNE FINKELDE RETIRES AFTER 22 YEARS AT AAB, NEW CEO BEING LINED UP

Wayne Finkelde has retired as CEO of AAB Holdings, the owner of Pegasus Print and SOS Print + Media, with an announcement imminent on his successor, for what is head of one of the country's biggest independent print groups.

The company currently has board director David Macindoe as interim CEO, who says an "extensive recruitment process" has taken place for the new CEO.

Finkelde's 22 year tenure as CEO of AAB can only be regarded as a major success. He was brought in to run AAB when it was created as Woolworths spun off its printing arm, the business comprising half printing and half food, at a time when there would have been 100 or more A1 presses in the state, the smartphone hadn't been invented and Australia still had a thriving car manufacturing sector.

He said, "The business today is completely different to 20 years ago. We moved with the times."

AAB acquired other print businesses, notably the Bruce Mears MAPS company, consolidated them all into the 20,000sqm Blacktown site, then sold off the food business, and bought high profile digital and offset SOS Print + Media in 2018, which it kept at its Alexandria location. Today AAB is in offset, digital, large format, labels and packaging, with a host of technologically advanced kit.

The business is selling around $85m worth of product a year, with some 220 staff across the two sites. Blacktown 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.

In addition to printing, AAB has a large warehousing operation, including for clients for whom it does no printing, and its FM Supplies business, which will essentially provide anything, with four offices in China sourcing the product.

Speaking to Print21 Finkelde said the value that AAB provides is the breadth of product, he said, "The offset market is pretty well commoditised these days, we're all conscious it's a price-driven market. One of our advantages is that we can do everything in house; we can print, fold, bind, mail and distribute. In terms of when you want to sell to a larger customer, our capabilities really come to the fore. So if you want large format, if you want digital, if you want personalised product, packaging, labels, die cutting, assembly, AAB does it all. We assemble, we fulfil, we send everything out as a complete product. Today you have to be a total solutions provider."