February 27, 2001
Michael Hill and Gordon Griffiths form company
TORONTO — PrintCan has learned from an industry source that Michael Hill, former senior vice president of the business development group at Transcontinental Printing, and Gordon Griffiths, former president of St. Joseph Corp., have recently formed a company called Caxton Group, and are looking to acquire companies that specialize in marketing, communications and design services.

Cenosis acquires Communicorp
MONTREAL — In a deal announced last week, Cenosis Inc. acquired Communicorp Corporation of Toronto. CFO Richard Labbé says Cenosis bought more than 5 million shares of Communicorp (or 54.9% of the company) at 17¢ per share for a total of $3.5 million payable with Cenosis’ shares. The deal is to close officially in mid-March. Communicorp employs about 120 and is a graphic arts and multimedia communications company. Cenosis specializes in developing software and is wholly owned by KangaCom Inc., an applications service provider. Labbé says this acquisition, following on the heels of Cenosis’ purchase of Toronto-based Leading Graphics Inc., will make the company “a major player in the Ontario market in the prepress industry.”

February 23, 2001
Bowne Western Canada gets certified
VANCOUVER — Bowne Western Canada, which includes a plant in Vancouver and one in Calgary, received ISO-9002 certification last month. Lorne Patterson, vice president and general manager, described it as “third-party validation of your quality system.” Patterson says certification took about a year to achieve between writing a business plan, and reviewing how the company is run, employee participation, management systems and customer service. Each location is about 6,000 sq.ft. with 35 employees and combined produce about $12 million in revenue.

RCMP discover counterfeit $10 bills
OTTAWA — Only a month after the Bank of Canada launched its new $10 bills, and basement counterfeiters have been hard at work. Paul Laurin, manager of the Central Bureau for Counterfeits, said about 30 notes were turned over to the RCMP in the last couple of weeks, five of which were confirmed authentic. Laurin couldn’t discuss how the counterfeits were produced, but did say they were printed on an inkjet printer and were of low quality. “The thing is,” he says, “until the public and the financial community become thoroughly familiar with the notes, the counterfeits, even a low quality counterfeit, has a chance to pass.” To date, the counterfeits were all discovered in Ontario through retailers and banks.

February 20, 2001
Fraser Papers closes Ohio mill
STANFORD, Conn. — As of March 9, Fraser Papers Inc.’s West Carrollton, Ohio paper mill will no longer be in operation. The closure leaves 305 people out of work and 105,000 tonnes less capacity in the industry.
Richard Chapel, director of communications, says the facility closed because “the market for the products made at that mill is significantly over supplied and we are matching the mill capacity...to meet the market demand.” The Ohio mill specialized in uncoated papers. Chapel also added that the company couldn’t pass the rising costs of consumables onto the consumer, so the only solution was to close the mill.
The company has mills in New Brunswick, Maine and Wisconsin, and a pulp mill in Ontario. Revenue for Fraser Papers last year was US$750 million. Fraser Papers is a subsidiary of Toronto-based Nexfor Inc.

Pacific Bindery moves into new digs
VANCOUVER — Pacific Bindery Services Ltd. closed its two locations—Great Northern and Malkin—and moved into one new 50,000 sq.ft. facility. General manager Gerry Heinz says the move was made to increase capacity and “to get everybody under one roof.”
Eight-year-old Great Northern was a 15,000 sq.ft. plant that held the administration offices, and mechanical binding, saddle stitching, folding and cutting operations. It closed Jan. 18. The Malkin plant, which closed Feb. 1, was a five-and-a-half year old 10,000 sq.ft. facility that specialized in perfect binding. Combined the plants had 60 employees who have all moved to the new site. Heinz says they are still in the process of hiring new staff and have acquired a new MBO folder and a Corona perfect binder from Müller Martini.

February 16, 2001
Batten to run Arthurs-Jones Clarke’s prepress
TORONTO — Arthurs-Jones Clarke Lithographing has outsourced its prepress services to Batten Graphics (a division of Schawk Canada). Arthurs-Jones president Emilio Ciampini made the announcement last week that the company had entered into a “contractual agreement” and that Batten was “going to run our inhouse facilities on the prepress side.”
As a result of the contract, five employees were let go at Arthurs-Jones Clarke. Ciampini says the move made sense because “it’s [prepress] not a core competency—it would require millions of dollars to get up to speed again. And with Batten they’ve got all the facilities in place, all the digital workflow, it’s just a matter of applying it.”
The terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Artech plant goes into receivership
STURTEVANT, Wis. — A division of Montreal-based Artech Capital Inc., Artech Printing, went into receivership Jan. 29. Artech Printing publishes children’s books and was formerly known as Golden Books Family Entertainment until Artech Capital purchased the company in Dec., 1999.
Mark Patenaude, vice president of sales and business development, said yesterday that of the company’s almost US$10 million debt, US$9 million was inherited from the original owners. Patenaude dismissed rumours that the printing facility’s woes stemmed from late deliveries, underbidding and layoffs of experienced staff as “union rhetoric.” He says the high fixed costs of a state of the art facility was the main culprit. The plant has been running at half capacity with 150 employees; 72 were laid off in January.

February 13, 2001
Dollco Direct moves manufacturing facility to Ottawa
MARKHAM, Ont. — Dollco Direct, a division of Dollco Communications Inc., is closing its manufacturing facility on March 1 and moving it closer to its Ottawa-based headquarters.
President G.B. Hap Nicholds says a sales and service centre will remain in Markham, but in a new location. Nicholds explains that the move was prompted by expansions in Ottawa and a lease that expires in August on the Markham location. Besides, says Nicholds, “there’s too much office space and not enough manufacturing space [in Markham]...it made more sense from a logistics point of view and from a manufacturing point of view to have everything in Ottawa.”
The site in Markham is up to 20,000 sq.ft., while the new site is going to be 30,000 sq.ft. Nicholds says up to 20 of the 60 employees will remain in the Toronto area, some will relocate to Ottawa and up to 40 will be laid off. Dollco Communications has three divisions and revenues of more than $50 million.

Printbid.com closes up e-shop
KIRKLAND, Wash. — The two-year-old auction/bidding site, www.printbid.com, closed down at the end of January because it wasn’t making money. Rich Begert, president and CEO of ImageX.com—the company that bought Printbid.com in Dec., 1999—says “it wasn’t meeting the success criteria that we had established for it.”
Begert says that the company started marketing and charging for the service late last year, but “the marketplace just didn’t take off. I think it provides a great value for the printer and the print buyer, but it just didn’t take off to the extent that we needed it to.” ImageX.com offers Web-enabled design and printing services.

February 8, 2001
Que-Net mum on layoffs
TORONTO — According to an industry source, Que-Net Media recently laid off several staff. Calls to the company yielded no confirmation, in fact staff refused to comment. Que-Net changed its name from Quebecor Litho Plus just a few months ago. Que-Net is a prepress house providing creative design and electronic page assembly, scanning, film preparation, and film and digital file storage

Pulp and paper earnings soar in 2000
MONTREAL — At a news conference launching PaperWeek International’s annual meeting last week, the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association (CPPA) released the industry’s performance figures for 2000. The industry shipped 31.5 million tonnes and registered $2.6 billion in net earnings, compared to $752 million in 1999. Shipments of newsprint were up by 1.2%, printing and writing papers increased by 11.4%, and packaging declined by 3.4%. In a press release, past chairman, Pierre Monahan, said even though earnings were up at $2.6 billion, it’s still only half of what’s considered “a reasonable return on investment.”

February 6, 2001
West Star opens new U.S. plant
TORONTO — PrintCan has learned that West Star Printing Ltd. recently opened a plant in Buffalo, NY. The new plant operates under the name, West Star Printing (U.S.). The company also recently installed bindery equipment, a Polaroid Polaproof Digital Pressmatching system, and a Heidelberg 11-colour perfector 28"x40" sheetfed press.

Moore lays off forms and labels management
TORONTO — Moore Corporation laid off five of its upper management staff from its Mississauga, Ont.-based North America Forms and Labels Operations last week. Spokesperson Stephen Forbes said the layoffs equalled a savings of between US$7 million and US$10 million. The company originally had two management teams for the one North American division, one in Bannockburn, Ill. and one in Canada. The facilities, sales offices and manufacturing plants in Canada will continue to operate as usual. “The company felt that it was two teams too much,” said Forbes. “It added...a pretty expensive layer of cost to...have a president in Canada and a president in the U.S., plus a vice president series of teams beneath them and at the same time really having two distinct operations covering one business line; we weren’t really leveraging our strength.”

February 2, 2001
Britannia buys Baldwin
TORONTO — In a deal that closed today, Britannia Printers has acquired Baldwin Graphics. Britannia owner, Les Saunders, said the purchase “seemed like a good idea.” Saunders received news that Baldwin was up for sale about a month ago and discussions began immediately. Britannia is a general commercial printer established over 50 years ago. It employs 15 in a 10,000 sq.ft. site and has revenues of about $3 million.

St. Joseph continues printing Shift magazine
CONCORD, Ont. — Tony Gagliano, president and CEO of St. Joseph Printing, says he can’t discuss the money he’s owed by Shift magazine—the title that declared bankruptcy in late November—because “it’s actually going through the courts right now.” St. Joseph has been printing Shift, the general interest magazine, for almost two years. The title was acquired by Multi-Vision Publishing in early December. It’s estimated that Shift owes St. Joseph $415,398.40. While it’s rumoured that St. Joseph is to get about 17cents for every dollar owed, Gagliano says “the expectation” is that it will be more, but “we’re not going to know for another 60 days what percentage of our amount is going to be paid...it’s still not clear.”