中文The book isn’t dead — it’s just changing hands
Just when you thought the printed book was a relic, a deal lands that proves the opposite. CPI Books and CPI Antony Rowe, two of the UK’s most important book printers, have been acquired by SoFiGraf — the holding company of Italy’s Franceschi family — through its subsidiary GV Group. The deal closed on 13 October after an international competitive bidding process and six months of what both sides call “lengthy and demanding negotiations.”
Between them, CPI Books and CPI Antony Rowe generate around €150m (£127m) in turnover and produce more than 100 million books a year. They employ just over 900 people. Put simply, this is not a tuck-in. It nearly doubles the size of GV Group.
Who is buying, and why
Fabio Franceschi, chairman of SoFiGraf, said the group “worked with determination to acquire the companies we considered strategically important to our industrial development plans.” The acquired businesses bring expertise, people, and relationships into an Italian-American platform that already includes Grafica Veneta in Italy, Lake Book Manufacturing near Chicago, and PA Hutchison in Pennsylvania. Add the UK operations, and GV’s annual capacity tops 400 million books.
There is a philosophy behind the geography. Franceschi said the group’s growth follows “the clear principle of printing each book in the country chosen by the publisher” — combining an international network with local production. In an era when supply chains snapped mid-pandemic, that local-plus-global model sounds less like nostalgia and more like resilience.
What stays, what changes
Here is where it gets practical for customers and staff. CPI UK confirmed the current management team stays in place at both businesses. The CPI name will not travel with the acquired companies — it remains with CPI’s European businesses — but the UK arm will be renamed GV Books UK. The Antony Rowe name, a respected print-on-demand brand handling more than 700,000 orders a year, survives.
Giorgio Bertan remains CEO of GV Group and becomes chairman of the UK operations. Mauro Fontanari stays on as chief commercial officer, and Stefania Turrin remains group CFO. So the day-to-day faces are largely the same; the cheque writer is new.
The long-term signal
Franceschi wrote to suppliers that “our priority, both today and in the years ahead, is continuity.” He described the acquisition as “a long-term industrial investment, financed entirely with our own capital.” That self-funded, patient-capital approach is rare and, frankly, reassuring in a sector where private equity flip-and-exit stories have burned plenty of suppliers.
He also promised the group will “learn from the expertise, technologies and organisational models developed over time in each market, and share these across all our operations.” If that cross-pollination actually happens, a UK book printer could quietly gain from American on-demand know-how, and vice versa.
A sobering backdrop
It is worth remembering why this matters. Last year CPI Group proposed an orderly shutdown at CPI William Clowes, a Beccles plant dating to 1803 that printed weighty legal tomes and Bibles. The book-printing map is shrinking even as volume holds up. A deal like this consolidates the survivors and gives them scale to invest.
For publishers, the message is mixed: fewer independent book printers, but a bigger, better-capitalised one. For the 900-plus CPI UK employees, the promise of continuity is the only number that counts right now.
Source: Printweek
