Global print management giant open for business in Australia

The company was founded by chairman Howard Hunt in the UK in the 1990s and is now run by chief executive Robert MacMillan, with offices on five continents.

It has already been active in the local market as The Riders Group and the print subsidiary will now come under the HH Global name.

The local outfit is being headed up by Riders Group directors Rowan Isaacs and Marc Flior, whose career included a three-year stint as general manager of procurement at Commonwealth Bank.

Flior said: "HH Global comes with a global focus and presence, market-leading technology and access to global resources to activate the local market. We have strong plans to drive exponential growth and will be looking to recruit the industry's best to support the HH Global vision and mission."

In its most recent accounts, HH Global posted a 1.8% rise in turnover to £95m ($139m), a 138% rise in EBITDA to £2.3m and a return to net profit of £961,000, following a £1.7m loss the year before.

Andrew Lester, HH Global's Sydney-based business development manager, told ProPrint that the group's initial strategy will focus on its existing accounts with international blue-chip brands, which include Google, Intel, TJX, Siemens, Sara Lee, Nokia and RIM.

He said he didn't think the local print management market was too crowded for another player. "Rather than the likes of Stream and Ergo trying to branch out, we are a global company coming in."

Asked whether the major print managers should be concerned about HH Global launching here, Lester said: "Of course they should be [but] I think there is enough room for all of us to work together.

"Initially for us it is about leveraging off the global accounts. Right now it is about leveraging the Sara Lees, the Googles and making sure we are supporting them on a worldwide basis locally here."

Lester said the group, which has 1,700 suppliers worldwide, already has approved supplier panels in Australia, though "we are always looking to see if there is anyone out there who can do it better".

"There are some areas we may need more, [for instance] mail houses. We have two and might need to expand that to four or five [but] we are not about having everyone in Australia on our books."

Lester explained that the HH Global ethos was to be a full service communications provider across its four divisions: print, retail, digital and broadcast. It handles client brand collateral through its own digital asset management system.

"[There is a] benefit of an infrastructure that is global. Case in point, I took a brief at 4 o'clock on a Thursday for a web banner, I sent it off to the UK and the next day I had five examples of a web banner that could go to my clients. I don’t know of any other companies that could walk in at 9am the next morning with a solution.

"Things are changing. Rather than print management being down the food chain and being 'order-takers', the approach that [HH Global chief executive Robert MacMillan] has taken is to go further up to food chain and look at decoupling of the agency."

"It is about going out to businesses and saying 'you can still have the agency for the big idea but we will take everything after that'. We can print it wherever," added Lester.