The Bookseller.com

7th September 2008

Butler & Tanner on the edge

19.06.08 Tom Holman

Printer Butler & Tanner is teetering on the precipice after the collapse this week of last-ditch talks to secure its future. Meetings between a management buyout team and the firm's administrators broke up yesterday (Wednesday, 18th June) without a deal. The m.b.o. team's leader Kevin Sarney, a former B&T director, said negotiations had stalled because of the high costs of restarting the business and buying its machinery. "It is with great sadness that we have to announce that at this stage we are unable to find a way forward."

Ann Field, print sector national officer for B&T staff union Unite, said the news was a bitter blow. "Our members have been hoping against hope that a future might be secured, and it's a very sad situation." Peter Kubik of administrators Hacker Young said the m.b.o. bid had been the only offer on the table for B&T. "As things stand, I can't see anyone coming in [to buy the business]."

Any prospects for the business now rest with a fresh eleventh-hour rescue package. Sarney and Field both said they hoped a buyer might come forward. "We're not giving up hope even at this late stage," Field said. "We hope that someone in the industry might realise that this is the moment to rethink the future of the British printing industry." Rising fuel costs and environmental concerns were prompting more and more publishers to think about bringing their print contracts closer to home, she added.

Any late bid will face a deadline of next Wednesday (25th June) when an online auction of Butler & Tanner's printing machinery is due to conclude. Bidders were inspecting the lots at B&T's Frome headquarters this week.

Mike Dolan, chairman of B&T's parent company MPI, said the m.b.o. offer had been too low. "While we wished Kevin and the team well with their bid, we were always sceptical about whether it was viable." He said the auction would proceed. "Our objective now is to optimise the price we can get for the machinery and get secured creditors the best dividend we can."

B&T's senior union chapel rep Stuart North said about half of the firm's workforce had found new work elsewhere, while the rest had been holding out for a rescue deal. "We had been trying to keep optimistic [about a deal], but things are looking bleak now."

Proceeds from the sale of equipment are unlikely to be enough to pass on any money to B&T's unsecured creditors. Kubik said staff's payment claims had been passed for processing to the Redundancy Payments Office—the government office responsible for compensating former employees of failed businesses—and that payments were starting to flow through.

Tom Holman Print Home MPI Butler & Tanner Mike Dolan

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