East Sussex Press, the company that controls Pureprint, Imprint and most recently Ashford Colour, enjoyed its best ever year in revenue terms in 2024. The year was also its fourth best in Ebitda terms according to the financial report filed at Companies House.
The business increased turnover slightly, to £72.9 million (£71.9 million), producing an Ebitda of £4.7 million (£97.1 million) and a pretax profit of £1.1 million (£3.6 million). Pureprint remains the largest part of the business and suffered a slight fall in turnover to £55,7 million (£56.9 million) for 2024. This generated an Ebitda of £4.1 million (£5.1 million).
The year was marked by wage inflation, decreased client confidence linked to the year’s General Election, and conflicts around the world which it says impacted revenues and profits. However, it gained business as, in euphemistic terms, “competitors continue to exit the market”. This competition provided the opportunity in November last year to acquire Ashford Colour from administration, too late to have a meaningful impact on the results in 2024.
The integration is going well with success in both staff and client retention. It adds a further service to offer existing clients as well as introducing book printing services to the group in a significant way. The upward trend in sales has continued into 2025 with strong forward bookings for the second half of 2025 and into 22026.
Investment in its own IT platforms continues and these now reach 100,000 users worldwide. It also adding a Speedmaster XL106-8-PL as a replacement for a four-colour press and a further Durst D4 large format printer at Imprint to serve the Out of Home sector. Luxury box production and direct mail were strong.
The Preprint arm of the group made its name as one of the pioneers for printing in a sustainable way and the ethos continues, with improvements in reducing carbon emissions by 1.4% even while increasing energy use by 4.1%.
The group does not break down revenues by product type, but does give a geographic split. This shows that at group level, the UK provided £65.0 million of revenue (£64.3 million), with Europe static at £1.8 million and the US contributing sales of £5.5 million (£5.3 million). It will be interesting to learn how Trump’s tariff policy has affected this in 2025.
This month is the last for non executive director Patrick Headley having spent a year in post. Long standing Pureprint director Richard Owers has also stepped down from his board role.
