NEW YORK—With a sharp year-over-year decline in revenue and profit due to difficult capital markets, Bowne & Co. announced it will reduce its workforce by 10 percent to provide cost savings of $21-$23 million. The cuts bring Bowne's total to 1,000 lost jobs in 2008, representing 24 percent of its workforce. Dave Shea, chairman and CEO, said the company will save $70 million annually as a result of the cutbacks.
NEW YORK—Bowne & Co. is acquiring the U.S.-based assets and operating business of Capital Systems, a producer of financial communications based in Manhattan, for approximately $13 million. Capital, with 2007 revenues of approximately $48 million, provides complete document production services, including composition, printing and distribution. Bowne expected to close the transaction within 10 days, subject…
NEW YORK—Bowne & Co. has acquired the digital printing business of Rapid Solutions Group, a subsidiary of Janus Capital Group for $14.5 million. RSG Digital has annual sales of about $45 million. RSG’s digital printing unit operates facilities in Chicago and Melville, NY.
NEW YORK—Bowne & Co. has pulled the trigger on a deal to acquire Alliance Data Mail Services (ADS MB), an affiliate of Alliance Data Systems. Terms of the deal were not revealed.ADS MB, which posts annual revenues of $36 million, provides personalized customer communications and intelligent inserting and commingling capabilities for the financial services, health…
NEW YORK—Bowne & Co. is closing its facility in Milwaukee as part of a plan to integrate its manufacturing capabilities. The move will result in the loss of approximately 100 jobs. Milwaukee’s digital facility will be integrated into Bowne’s South Bend, IN, operations, creating the company’s first fully integrated distributive platform. Bowne says it will continue to evaluate other possible facilities for consolidation, with the integration program expected to be completed in the first half of 2008. “Integrating our manufacturing resources is the next step in our strategic plan,” said David Shea, Bowne’s chairman, president and CEO, in a release. “Increasingly, clients are coming to us
NEW YORK—Bowne & Co. is closing its facility in Milwaukee as part of a plan to integrate its manufacturing capabilities. The move will result in the loss of approximately 100 jobs.Milwaukee’s digital facility will be integrated into Bowne’s South Bend, IN, operations, creating the company’s first fully-integrated distributive platform. The company says it will continue…
Turning Up the Volumes From a business standpoint, one of the big pluses of variable data printing is that the required expertise and infrastructure is very scalable. Even a daunting program becomes much more manageable if it is produced over time as a series of daily, shorter runs. This decreases the workload demands put on a Web-to-print system and digital press, helping to level the playing field for print providers. A case in point is the solution used by MFS Investment Management to produce customized 401(k) sales proposals. The financial services company sought a more efficient and effective way to quickly fill proposal
NEW YORK—Financial printers periodically pad their bills, which can be vague and difficult to decipher, according to a feature in the September 11 edition of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The business publication cited examples in which Merrill Corp., Bowne & Co. and RR Donnelley sometimes overshoot their estimates by hundreds of thousands of dollars and resist third-party auditing efforts prior to reducing their charges. The story noted that the difference between printer estimates and the final bill result from unanticipated overages or services not anticipated in the estimates. Generally, the WSJ reported, the disputed amounts are only tens of thousands of dollars, but it
NEW YORK—Philip Kucera, Bowne & Co. chairman and CEO, announced he will be retiring effective the end of this year. He will be replaced by David Shea, president and COO. Kucera will retain a seat on the board.Kucera, 64, joined Bowne as senior vice president and general counsel in December 1998. He became CEO in…
IMAGINE CONTROLLING your customers’ information, including how it is updated, managed, printed and distributed. Printers that provide database management services don’t have to dream about such a scenario. “We’ve offered database management services since the 1960s,” confirms Ty Vincent, president and CEO of Vincent Direct in Columbus, OH. “At that time, we typed a series of file cards for our clients and managed their information manually. The technology has evolved over the years and we now offer very sophisticated database management and in-house programming.” Although Vincent Direct has been offering these services for a long time, one could argue there has been no more important time
