South Australian-based printer and print management company Finsbury Green has acquired Adelaide commercial print business Digiwedoo following the retirement of owner Mike Minahan.
It’s understood Finsbury Green plans to move the entire Digiwedoo operation - including eight staff members and the printing equipment – into its facility at Thebarton in Adelaide.
“I didn’t have it on the market but they approached me a few months ago when they heard I was looking to retire,” says Minahan. “I just turned 73 a few days ago so it’s mostly due to my age and some personal problems. I enjoyed being there but recently I haven’t been able to spend as much time at work as I would have liked. I tried to continue because I enjoyed everything I did but I believe the business would have suffered so I decided to get out while the going was good.”
Minahan says the acquisition deal was “satisfactory to both parties.”
Since founding award-winning Digiwedoo 30 years ago in 1987, well-known industry identity Minahan established a reputation for quality digital work that included large format, book and magazine printing.
“Our biggest clients were graphic designers and advertising agencies and they can be quite demanding,” he says. “We’ve built up a very good reputation for quality and service and I wanted to make sure our clients would be able to enjoy the same levels of service.
“My main concern in passing on the business was that my team of people would have a sense of security and be given the opportunity to move up the ladder with a much bigger company. Finsbury has been very successful in the past few years. They’ve grown into a national company that employs about 200 people and has a multi-million-dollar turnover.
“They have a huge plant here in Adelaide and all eight of our full time staff will be going over along with all of our equipment, which includes an HP Indigo 7500 with all the bells and whistles. They didn’t have one of those and were quite interested in it. There’s also a range of digital printers, finishing and binding gear but I like to think they bought the expertise of the staff rather than just the equipment.”
Minahan plans to "just relax" for a couple of months and has no plans to return to the industry “unless it was something very small.”