Transcontinental Sells Two Book Manufacturing Plants

MONTREAL—After reviewing its business plan and long-term strategic objectives, Transcontinental Inc. announced that it is selling its Canadian book printing assets—namely its Transcontinental Gagné printing plant in Louiseville and Transcontinental Métrolitho printing plant in Sherbrooke—to Marquis Book Printing, of Cap-Saint-Ignace, which specializes in book printing.

Citing a highly competitive industry, Transcontinental plans to specialize primarily in certain type of markets, such as four-color web offset printing for educational book markets in Quebec and the United States. Transcontinental feels its performance in those markets has been excellent and it's confident about future development.

François Olivier, president and CEO of Transcontinental, noted, "We thought long and hard before deciding to sell the assets of our Sherbrooke and Louiseville plants. Over the past several months, we have made strategic decisions based on changes in the book printing market. We are sure that our one- and two-color book customers in Quebec will continue to be well-served by the new acquirer.

"For our part, we remain well-positioned to respond to the demands of our customers who are looking for better marketing solutions in our areas of specialization, including educational book printing," Olivier added.

The acquisition will enable Marquis to develop new markets and products.