Swindon & Wiltshire News
Employees take over specialist printing company
Specialist printing company Redcliffe Imaging has turned its business into an employee-owned trust.
More than 30 years ago, George Burr wanted to set up his own printing company for Bristol and beyond to provide local, high-quality, and bespoke printing services to businesses and individuals.
Today the company is led by managing director Tom Chard with 14 members of staff, some of whom have worked at the business for over 20 years.
The company offers fine art giclee printing, map printing, greeting card printing, and wallpaper printing.
It also offers bespoke services such as ordering personalised maps – partnering with Ordnance Survey – creating ‘retro’ 1890 style maps for any postcode.
And the company works with artists including Jenny Urquhart, known for her iconic images of Bristol, and Peter Spens, known for his fine art work of London and the official artist for the Olympics in London 2012, Rio 2016, and Tokyo 2020.
This year looks bright for the new Redcliffe Imaging, as they plan to increase productivity by 30 per cent and are investing in a new kit, including a new wallpaper printer with trimmer, to enhance their printing accuracy.
George made the decision to step back from the company and opted for converting the business into an employee-owned trust.
He said: “I chose an EOT as a viable exit route as I considered it was the best way to acknowledge the massive contribution of the long serving employees of Redcliffe.
It also had tax advantages for both myself and the employees.
“In this transition period I’m still involved with Redcliffe, but in a much smaller, hands-off way. This new free time has enabled me to make extended travel plans and spend more time in the great outdoors, which is my great passion.”
An employee owned trust allows the founder or owners of a business to exit by selling their shares to a trust run by employees. They can exit immediately or over a period of time.
“Becoming employee owned has been a steep learning curve for us all in that it takes
time to understand how it works and who is responsible for what,” Tom said.
“Now the ‘new look’ Redcliffe is beginning to ‘bed in’ and we understand that the harder we work and the more productive we are, the more we will all benefit.”
The team were supported in becoming an EOT by Chris Maslin who runs Go EO, an independent company which works with SMEs considering this business model.
“Having gone through the process myself, I felt it was, in many cases, far more complex and costly than it needed to be and came up with a more stream-lined approach to help others transition to this business model,” Chris said.
Pictured: The Redcliffe Imaging team with George Burr, right back
