The Max

Ever since design and print company PDQ merged with Maxiprint in Kettlestring Lane, Clifton Moor, York, and officially rebranded as The Max in March, turnover and profits have been set to soar.

Latest sales figures for 2003/04 stand at £2.5 million, with £3.3 million forecast for next year and £2.8 million expected for 2005/06 when profit yield is expected to be about £537,000.

That should please Colin Graves, chairman and managing director of the Costcutter Supermarkets Group, who is also chairman of The Max, in which his group has a big financial interest.

It should also impress the judges of the Evening Press Business Awards for which The Max is pitching for the title of Growth Business of the Year as well as the Progress Through People accolade.

It all began in 1987 when director Darren Avey launched PDQ and landed Costcutter as a major client. The business partnership inevitably followed.

PDQ expanded, offering a specialist design and photography facility. Then in July 2002, as more clients came on board along with growth in work from Costcutter plus projects from the supermarket chain's suppliers Nisa Today's Ltd of around £1 million, negotiations began with Maxiprint.

Since then, under managing director Nick Ivel, the company has benefited from using one of only three computer-to-plate printing systems in Yorkshire as well as other impressive printing machinery.

Another big acquisition came last November when The Max bought 51 per cent of the shares in Cricnet, the official magazine of the England cricket team, produced and part-owned by the Professional Cricketers Association.

If that made Mr Graves smile even more - he is, after all, chief executive of Yorkshire County Cricket Club - then he must have kept beaming when The Max was awarded the contract the produce his club's official magazine, The Yorker.

Meanwhile, the staff of The Max is keeping pace with the increasing technology by a training scheme linked to the Investors in People standard. There is also a policy of recruiting from all age groups.

Updated: 11:58 Monday, August 16, 2004