Company news Seven million pound company comes home to Wales

Seven million pound company comes home to Wales

Seven million pound company comes home to Wales

Leading Pontllanfraith based magazine printer Pensord has been the subject of a
management buyout from Irish investment company Allen, McGuire & Partners by its
Welsh Chief Executive Tony Jones - and he is aiming to more than double the size of the
company within five years.

The sheet-fed printer has a turnover of £7m and a workforce of 120 people. Pensord prints a range of short-run magazine titles for some of the UK’s leading publishers, including the Trinity Mirror group; IPC; Centaur Communications; and a number of smaller, entrepreneurial publishing houses.

Jones becomes Pensord’s owner after three years as CEO. For Jones, this is a natural progression in a successful career that has taken him from senior roles in media sales and marketing, television – with HTV; radio and newspapers; into the print industry, where he used his marketing skills to revamp the S&G Print Group to give it one of the highest industry profiles in the UK. Jones would become joint Chief Executive at S&G, before moving across the Valleys to head up Pensord three years ago.

In true entrepreneurial fashion, funding for the initiative was independently secured by Jones himself, without the need to call on the public purse.

He says: “It feels very good to bring the company into Welsh ownership. I have such confidence in the staff here and in what we have achieved that I want to show my commitment to making Pensord a real force in UK printing, and a significant employer for the area. My whole career has been building to this point, and I am very excited about what lies ahead for everyone involved at Pensord.”

Jones has already implemented immediate investment plans, with a commitment for over £2m worth of equipment this year, including the very latest specification Heidelberg 8 unit perfector press – making Pensord the first company in the UK to install this piece of kit.

The management team were advised by the corporate team of Cardiff law firm Dolmans. The team was led by partner Johnathan Rees who said: "We are delighted to have been involved at such an exciting time in Pensord's development. Tony Jones heads an impressive and experienced management team and we are pleased to have been able to help them achieve their goals."

KPMG acted as corporate finance advisers. Michael Carey who headed KPMG's team said: "We were delighted to support Tony in this ambitious move and look forward to working with him to achieve his plans for the future.

Business mortgage services were provided by the Principality; and banking services by Lloyds TSB.