Von Hoffmann Consolidates Plants

ST. LOUIS—Von Hoffmann Corp. announced it was integrating its two-plant facility Precision Offset Printing into Lehigh Lithographers, of Pennsauken, NJ, in a move to reduce costs and consolidate its services for customers of materials printed on plastics and other synthetic substrates.

Precision Offset, which employs about 110 people at its Leesport, PA, and Dauberville, PA, facilities, is a leading manufacturer of plastic products, including overhead transparencies and plastic inserts for educational textbooks. Von Hoffmann will incur a pre-tax charge between $4 million and $4.5 million in the first quarter of 2004 to cover severance payments, relocation costs and the write-down of certain fixed assets that will not be relocated.

"Lehigh possesses the latest state-of-the-art sheetfed equipment and digital printing technologies," Robert Mathews, president and CEO of Von Hoffmann, said in a statement. "In addition, Lehigh has years of experience printing complex, high-quality products on a variety of materials.

"By transitioning certain expertise and equipment from Precision into Lehigh, as well as making further significant investments in prepress, press and bindery, it is our intent to create a platform for printing on plastics that far surpasses anyone in the book printing industry."

Lehigh Lithographers is a division of The Lehigh Press, a wholly owned subsidiary of Von Hoffmann that was acquired in October of 2003.