Managers take over MIS giant

One of the world’s biggest MIS developers, Tharstern, which has 50 Aussie printers among its user base has been sold in a management buy-out.

Keith McMurtrie, managing director of Tharstern, with Antony Lord, technical director, and Lee Ward, sales director, have picked up the £4m (AU$7.3m) turnover company from the family of the original founder, for an undisclosed sum.

The three now have a significant ownership stake in the business and will continue in the direct day-to-day running of the company, with plans to drive sales growth and widen Tharstern’s customer base in the UK and overseas.

Tresta Keegan, managing director of Tharstern Australia, says the changes will reinforce Australian and New Zealand customers’ confidence in the company’s long term future.

She tells AP, “The MBO has given us an assured future with the product. Our MIS will not be consumed by a competitor buyout and then retired, forcing users to change to MIS products they never wanted to adopt in the first place.

“MIS is a business critical tool. Change is not easy. Working with the right product and partners is vital.”

She says the Australian and New Zealand businesses, which are owned by three NZ shareholders and one Australian shareholder, are experiencing healthy growth – with six Primo MIS installations in the past six months including some large, complex projects.

Head office, she says, is keen to do the right thing by its customers around the world, and the buyout is an extension of this philosophy.

She says, “With more than 50 trans-Tasman installations and with Tharstern’s own customer base of more than 500 companies, they had to take steps to make sure everyone was investing in a future that will support the industry, not subvert it.”

McMurtrie, who has been with the company since its early stages in 1991, says, “The deal will provide security and continuity, and ensures that Tharstern retains its brand and identity as a recognised world leader within the printing and allied industries.

“This move retains our independence and gives us even greater confidence for the future. It also gives us an even stronger platform for rapid growth in what we know is an expanding market.”

Tharstern offers its Primo MIS specifically for printers, to transform data into meaningful information and improve operations. It says the software provides facts and figures, trends and patterns to help printers to drive their sales, reduce costs, protect their margins, grow revenue and improve efficiency.

Primo’s functionality spans in-plant MIS, e-procurement, connectivity to complementary technologies and integration to customer-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.

In 2012 the company launched its E4Print Pro e-commerce module, which incorporates the Chili Publish online document editor. The system allows printers to manage, approve and track jobs online, and their customers can create and edit documents online.

The system combines variable data with variable manufacture and variable price.

In one case study, UK general printer ESP Colour says working with Tharstern, Kodak and Heidelberg to standardise its processes and introduce automation throughout the business took its turnover from £7m (AU$12.8m) with 64 staff to £11.5m (AU$21m) with 50 staff.

Tharstern has been up and running now for thirty years, founded by Keith Harrison in 1984. Its history reflects the explosion of technology in the last few decades.

Harrison, who was working as a financial director for a printing company, saw an opportunity to develop an estimating package for printers. A prototype was developed on a Commodore PET home computer, and evolved through 16 and 32 bit versions, on DOS and beyond.

Today it says more than 10,000 users employ its technologies worldwide.

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