The receiver, Ernst & Young Inc., was appointed on April 6 to handle the property of Printcrafters Inc., a commercial printing company in Winnipeg that started in 1996 and had been growing strong through acquisition in recent years, at least prior to the onset of the recent economic recession.
Bob Payne
The company’s founder Bob Payne had great visions of seeing the company grow into a major force in the industry.
Profiled in the June 2009 “Top Printers” edition of Canadian Printer. Payne felt at the time that the company was on track to reach sales of $100 million in five years—company sales for 2008 were around $21 million. The Printcrafters group of companies included Printcrafters, Dave’s Quick Print, Westcan Printing Group, Kildonan Printing and Globally Boundless (GB Graphics).
In the article Payne notes that the commercial printing business comes with “lots of challenges, lots of stress and lots of pressure.”
“In this industry, you need to have very, very thick skin and you’ll have to put your life, your family, everything on hold…and then you might not make it. Once you jump into this, you’re all alone. You have to meet the expectations of your staff, shareholders and customers, and making just one big mistake could put everyone out of work.”
Unfortunately, the printing business and the economy appear to have taken their toll on Printcrafters. According to documents posted by Ernst & Young, the book value of Printcrafters as of Feb. 28, 2011 was over $5.6 million (receivables, inventories, property, plant and equipment). The company operated Heidelberg presses including a five-colour 29-inch along with three 40-inch presses (five-, six, and 10-colours) as well as digital printing equipment from Xerox and HP Indigo.
The Royal Bank of Canada is owed over $4.4 million and CIT Financial over $1.2 million from Printcrafters, both are on a list of secured creditors which also includes Heidelberg Canada, Kodak Canada among various leasing and credit companies.
As part of the plan of action, the receiver was winding down operations, completing work in progress, and would be seeking liquidation proposals for the plant and equipment.
It was anticipated by the receiver that there would be no funds available for unsecured creditors.
