The UK arm of the CPI Books group has been acquired by SoFiGraf, the holding company for fast growing Italian book printer Grafica Veneta.
It is buying the trade books business, with factories in Chatham and Croydon, and the print on demand business under the Anthony Rowe name with plants in Wiltshire, Eastbourne and Bognor Regis. This amounts to production of around 100 million books a year and turnover of £127 million.
The buyer is a company that 40 years ago was a small typesetting business. It now operates a vast factory in Trebaseleghe near Venice where it operates three Koenig & Bauer heatset web presses, a Koenig & Bauer Rotajet, Komori sheetfed machines and two Canon inkjet presses, supported by comprehensive bindery equipment.
GV, part of a family owned group that has interests in energy and property, also operates in the US having acquired Lake Book Manufacturing in 2021 and PA Hutchinson in 2024. US revenues account for around two-thirds of the group’s existing turnover.
Before including its new acquisition, GV could claim 17 continuous inkjet presses, 17 Timsons, three Koenig & Bauer web presses, nine sheetfed presses and 15 perfect binding lines.
CPI Books has passed through a number of hands since its creation by acquisition to be the major book production operation in Europe. However, with the market described as largely stagnant and continuing losses on revenues of more than £280 million and efforts to escape the business, the PE owner has been considering the sale of all or part of the business.
While there are operations in France, Germany, Spain and Czechia, the integrity and size of the UK operation has attracted the most interest in a sale process running over multiple months.
The group has closed operations in Germany and moved machinery from there to Spain in a bid to stem the tide. It has not however drawn a line under all investment with two projects involving robots underway in the UK. That said investment has not kept pace with arch – and also Italian owned – rival Clays.
That may change under new private ownership given that the acquisition of its US subsidiaries in was followed by investment and the rate of spend in Italy. In 2002 current chairman Fabio Franceschi became sole owner. He remains active in the business, dividing his time between Italy and the US, led by Nicola Franceschi while sons Gianmarco and Alberto are in charge of GV Energy and the operating companies respectively. Group CEO is Giorgio Bertan who becomes chairman of the UK operations while existing management teams remain in place.
The corporate strategy is to work with publishers to produce their titles in the most appropriate location.
That growth began after GV won the contract to print the Italian edition of the first Harry Potter book. As demand grew, investment and construction kept pace making the site the largest book manufacturing plant in Italy. It says it has produced more than 6 million Harry Potter books since 2014. Today the production area covers 100,000m2, the roof is covered with solar panels and the factory, perhaps uniquely, includes a grove of lemon trees.
