Separations are set to begin Saturday at the massive Quad/Graphics plant in Saratoga Springs, with layoffs continuing through the planned May 4 closing of the facility in WJ Grande Industrial Park off Geyser Road.
The company announced the shutdown in January, and a spokeswoman said this week the timetable set then still stood. The 1-million-square-foot plant, opened in 1984, printed magazines, catalogs and retail inserts. It employed 406 people.
The print business has been at Quad’s core since the Wisconsin-based company’s founding in 1971. But as demand for printing services declined in the face of “digital substitution,” Quad faced “significant overcapacity in a highly competitive environment,” according to the company’s annual report filed with regulators last week.
One solution was reducing its footprint.
In 2020, Quad had 135 manufacturing plants, warehouses and offices in 14 countries totaling 22.1 million square feet. As of last year, there were 96 facilities in 14 countries with 17.5 million square feet, annual reports show.
Plant and equipment sales, along with divestiture of non-core business segments, have yielded $271 million in proceeds since 2020, Quad reported in a slide deck that accompanied a conference call with analysts last week on fourth-quarter and full-year results.
Another strategy was revenue diversification.
Quad expanded beyond traditional printing in 2019 by dropping “Graphics” from its name and becoming a “marketing experience” company that provides a range of creative services to clients under one roof, rather than just some components.
“…[O]ur integrated marketing platform provides a better marketing experience for our clients so they can focus on delivering the best customer experience to theirs,” CEO Joel Quadracci noted in a news release on 2023 results.
Anthony Staniak, chief financial officer, told analysts on the conference call that by selling excess plants and equipment, Quad not only paid down debt and returned capital to shareholders (a quarterly dividend was reinstated this month), but also enhanced marketing services, including through acquisition.
Quad in early February acquired DART Innovation, a provider of in-store digital screens that allow brands to deliver targeted ads to consumers as they shop. The screens will be piloted at West Coast regional grocer Save Mart, Quadracci said.
Quad has posted annual sales in the neighborhood of $3 billion the last few years. The company saw a net loss of $55 million last year, versus a profit of $9 million in 2022, attributing that in part to higher restructuring and impairment charges as machinery and equipment are idled and plants are maintained until sale.
Quad spokeswoman Claire Ho said this week that the Saratoga Springs plant will be marketed for sale by commercial brokers JLL and Cushman & Wakefield. She declined to say what the company expected it would sell for. How long it will take to get a sale is unknown.
All equipment at the plant will be removed, Ho said. Some will be moved to other Quad facilities, with the rest “decommissioned.”