Courier Expands Book Plant

-- Graphic Arts Online, 6/6/2005

Courier Corporation, North Chelmsford, MA, plans a $25 million expansion at its book printing plant in Kendallville, IN. Courier, annual sales $211 million, operates six plants and produced over 140 million books last year, with press runs ranging from 50 to 1,000,000 copies.

Since 2000, the company has invested over $50 million dollars in equipment and new technology to improve its book manufacturing business and to increase capacity.

The Kendall plant will also add another MAN Roland Lithoman IV 4-color web.

Robust sales to the education market, up 33%, helped the company post its highest second-quarter revenues and net income in its history. Revenues for the quarter were $53.5 million, up 8% from last year's second-quarter sales of $49.7 million. Net income for the quarter was $4.2 million, an increase of 8% over prior-year results of $3.9 million Six-month sales for fiscal 2005 were $104.8 million, up 9% from $96.5 million in the first half of last year.

The gains in the quarter were concentrated in Courier's book manufacturing segment, where sales rose 10% over last year's second quarter, reflecting continued growth in demand for the company's expanded capabilities in four-color textbook production.