Communisis, the company which has expanded from its pure print background to offer a wide-range of marketing services, has revealed a bullish outlook for the year, although also a number of cutbacks.
The marketing services provider’s Interim Management Statement shows a full year outlook of a 23% increase in operating profit. “The consensus is an operating profit of £11.6m compared with £9.4m in 2011 and we are reasonably positive that we can deliver on that,” said chief executive Andy Blundell.
However, it is to close its Northern Ireland cheque personalisation facility in January with the loss of 46 jobs, with the majority of production moving to Crewe.
Blundell said the move was “a reflection of the reducing demand in the cheque market” adding that the company no longer needed the amount of cheque printing capacity it had across its Crewe, Lisburn and Liverpool sites.
The group has also announced 16 redundancies at its 375-staff Leeds direct mail facility, which Blundell said would be across a range of positions and was not linked to the decommissioning of any kit.
“Leeds is moving more towards the specialist end [of the DM market], with more emphasis on digital and on statutory, quasi-transactional communications,” he said, adding that the cuts, which represent less than 5% of the Leeds workforce, reflected that evolution.
In all, Blundell claimed that there had actually been a slight net increase in group headcount over the past year.
