Pacific Print shelves May float plan

Commercial printer Pacific Print has shelved plans for flotation, deciding to seek private cash instead.

After saying it was considering an initial public offering in May, the company, which has 12 print businesses in Australia and New Zealand, said yesterday further growth could best be financed by raising private equity.

Discussions with several fund providers were advanced but not yet completed. It expected to make an announcement on the amount it hoped to raise soon.

Listing on the New Zealand stock exchange was still a long-term possibility. During the past three years, the East Tamaki-based company has taken more than a dozen local printing companies into its stable.

In November, a $40 million merger with competitor Brebner Print boosted turnover to more than $100 million and propelled it to the No 2 commercial printing company in the country, behind Blue Star Group.

The company then raised more than $30 million in a capital notes issue and said the next step would be an IPO.

Executive chairman Geoff Wilding is the biggest shareholder of the East Tamaki company, owning a 46 per cent stake.

Wilding is a former chief executive, director and major shareholder of CommSoft, a software developer that undertook an ill-fated float on the Australian and New Zealand exchanges in September 2000.

Nine months after listing, CommSoft warned the A$6.6 million profit forecast in its prospectus would instead be a A$17 million loss.

Shares that had traded as high as 86Ac in November 2000 later changed hands for less than 1Ac and the company went into voluntary administration in March 2003.

Wilding left as an executive in 2001 and resigned as a director in 2002.