Quad/Graphics

Quad has a blue chip customer base including many of the top magazines and retailers like SI, Time, Conde Nast, Williams Sonoma, Victoria’s Secret. It acquired World Color Press in July 2010. Management of both companies felt that pre-tax synergies would be at least $225 million. The costs to achieve the synergies would be $195-$240 million and take about 24 months.

Quad is about halfway through this process. As of Q2-11 it has achieved about $120M of the synergies. It has closed 9 of the 10 plants and cut employees from 5,000 to 3,400.

Over the next 12 months, it will realize

Despite enormous amounts of attention directed towards digital efforts in the magazine industry, many independent publishers still count print as their main business and most reliable source of revenue. As the paper market continues to fluctuate, publishers are finding new ways to keep the price of materials for their print issues at an affordable level.

Working with their previous printer, Quad/Graphics, Nevada Magazine discovered a paper option often not immediately offered to publishers.

“Most printers have their own stock paper, which they use when people don’t request a specific kind,” says publisher Janet Geary. Converting to the stock option saved almost 15

Quad/Graphics announced that its board of directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $100 million of its outstanding Class A common shares. “Given the current stock market environment, along with our confidence in the future outlook on the company, we believe share repurchases at appropriate price levels are a prudent use of cash and represent an attractive opportunity to increase returns to our shareholders over the long term,” said Joel Quadracci, Quad/Graphics chairman, president and CEO.

Often, it's a fine line that separates the "best" from the rest. Some leaders seem to have an extra gear, able to shift into overdrive when the going gets tough. Others possess an innate sense of timing.

Union members at the Quad/Graphics plant in Dickson (TN) successfully fought against decertification last week. Quad/Graphics, a traditionally non-union printing company, inherited the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union in Dickson when it bought out Worldcolor last year. Some employees signed a petition to decertify the union, so the company held a democratic vote to determine how to proceed. The union won by a 105-76 vote.

David Carney, of Dickson, is a lead operator on the press and carried a sign saying “Keep Your Holiday Pay, Vote Yes.”

“We want to have a say,” Carney said. “With a contract, we know we’ve

Goss International will use this year’s GRAPH EXPO show to highlight recent web press projects in North America, where commercial printers selecting Goss presses to replace older technology or enter new markets have given the company a near-unanimous market position through 2010 and 2011.

Quad’s second quarter 2011 net sales were $1.07 billion and its adjusted EBITDA was $126.7 million vs. net sales of $1.075 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $148.3 million in the same period of 2010. “A decline this quarter from 2010 was expected,” said Joel Quadracci.

Joel Quadracci may be the luckiest man in the printing industry: the heir apparent in commercial printing’s royal family; the successor to a multibillion-dollar empire hatched through the blood, sweat and tears of his industrious father. Still, heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Commercial printer equipment installations and other news from Printing Impressions’ August 2011 edition, featuring items on The Foresight Group and Mercury Print Productions.

If the printing company of tomorrow is going to look vastly different than it did even just five or 10 years ago, then it stands to reason that the printing trade show of tomorrow is due for an infusion that goes beyond Botox and a fanny implant. These changes will be more philosophical than cosmetic,…