There is a general expectation that there will be failures amongst the
printer community, particularly amongst those unable to find sufficient
credit”
“There is a general expectation that there will be failures amongst the
printer community, particularly amongst those unable to find sufficient
credit. Few have given thought to the issue of merchant credit lines.
The demise of PaperlinX will see a major reduction in the value of
credit available to the market as a whole. If the market cannot
increase the value of credit available then we must learn to use it more
efficiently. The obvious way will be to reduce debtor days and bring
payment days down to sensible levels and if suppliers are going to
continue acting as a bank for their customers they should at least get a
realistic return for the risk.”
One of the first things I needed to do was to re-energise the business
to face such challenges, rather than bury our heads in the sand and
expect adverse trading conditions to go away”
Looking back to a comment from former Robert Horne managing director
Paul French (who was brought in to clean house at the company), it is
indicative that a story which ended with the administration of Paperlinx
began as early as 2010: “Everyone is aware that the industry has been
going through a period of great change, with difficult times for the
paper market, where there has been a decline in consumption in
conjunction with price increases.