Mark Shergill to save 50 Focus jobs

Focus Print Group is up and running under hands-on owner Mark Shergill, who says he hopes the business will create as many as 50 jobs. Shergill says he wants to save as much of the old Focus Press company as he can and that his focus right now is on working with customers.

Shergill opened up to Print21 about his decision to step in when the $30 million-a-year business hit the wall detailing plans for the future of his expanding east-coast print empire.

“For us, this almost completes the puzzle that we’ve been trying to put together, that we can provide the same service in all three states now. At Print Warehouse we have mainly small offset, when we bought BPA last year that gave us a presence in the magazine and book market. We’ve got an A1 on the Gold Coast too, so I was looking to do this in a year or two down the track, to put in an A1 press and a perfector here. And then all this happened,” said Shergill.

Shergill says he was shocked to hear the news, and adds that he was in fact not one of the initial three potential buyers mentioned in early reports. He confirms that the deal was done on April 17^th, struck with David Fuller just days before Focus Press entered into administration.

“I’ve seen what happens when the administrators get in and try to run a printing business. When I bought BPA the administrators had been already been in for about six weeks. I thought, if I get this done fairly quickly and it’s only closed for a week and half, I can save more of it. The more we can keep the business going, the more we can try to save basically. Customers, staff, jobs, the whole thing,” says Shergill.

He adds that while he is confident he can rebuild the business, consolidation is unavoidable. Shergill confirms he has reached out to distressed workers from all four Focus plants, and has already been able to pick up at least two employees from the Canberra site.

He reveals to Print21, “My plan would be to have staff of about 50. I think there were about 150 in the group. I’ve looked at the numbers and with consolidating the sites, that’s what I’m projecting. It all depends on moving quickly and working closely with customers, but I’m confident we can save about 50 jobs all up.

“I was down in Wollongong, and all I was thinking was trying to employ some of the young guys there. I was thinking, if you guys can move here then I can give you some work. But there’s no way logistically we can keep that site open, Matraville open, and this site open. And I believe that’s part of what’s happened here, running multiple sites in one state is not feasible.”

Shergill confirms that Focus Print Group will continue to run from its Strathfield South site under a ten-month lease, before likely folding operations into his neighbouring Print Warehouse premises. As well as client lists and the Focus name, the deal sees Shergill take on all the equipment at the Strathfield site. He also picks up the majority of the equipment from Matraville, Wollongong and will move them to Strathfield.

The fate of the damaged Illawarra KBA remains undecided, but Shergill indicates he will likely take it on too. Items that are not part of the deal include two Komori Lithrone 628, Canon Image Runner C7010, and a Heidelberg XL 75 ten-colour perfector from Matraville, and a Fujfilm Jet Press 540 highspeed inkjet from Illawarra.

Shergill continues, “At the moment I’m not even worried about that. Right now I’m focussed on the customer-base and the staff we have retained as well as letting guys know that we’re still around, we’re running from here and that part of it will work itself out.”