SPI to go into book production

Publicly-listed SPI Technologies has branched out into book production as it gets set to acquire US-based Achorn Graphics Inc., a well regarded supplier of full composition services largely to book publishers.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, SPI said it has signed a stock purchase agreement acquiring Achorn from Marcel Drekker Inc., a leading publisher of scholarly, technical and medical journals.

Achorn is a full-service typesetting vendor that has been in the business for 25 years, producing products ranging from novels and children’s books to high-end medical journals and college textbooks. Based in Boston, it currently has 35 full-time employees doing mainly typesetting, while its file structuring and graphics services are being outsourced.

Among its clients are blue-chip names such as University of Chicago Press, Aspen Publishers, MIT Press, and Kluwer Academic.

The terms of the stock purchase deal were not disclosed but SPI said the business acquisition would be able to contribute annual revenues of P100 million, on top of another $1 million yearly with the signing of a three-year supply agreement with Marcel Drekker.

Marcel Drekker is currently a client of SPI with the latter providing end-to-end production services to the former’s encyclopedia and journal publications.

"The acquisition is a strategic fit for the company to expand our portfolio of services in the business process outsourcing (BPO) market and likewise expand our customer base in scholarly and professional publishing," said SPI president and CEO Ernest Cu. – Conrado Diaz Jr.