Stinehour Press to Close

-- Publishers Weekly, 4/8/2008 7:47:00 AM

The Stinehour Press, one of the country’s best known independent printers of high-end illustrated books, will shut down by the end spring. The announcement was made Monday by CEO Warren Bingham who, with a group of investors, acquired the company in 2002 after the multinational company that bought the press from the Stinehour family in 1998 said it planned to close the printer. Bingham explained that after an initial infusion of funds helped to turnaround the press, continued pricing pressure from foreign manufacturers made it impossible to move forward without new capital that would enable Stinehour to upgrade its equipment. Bingham said he has had discussions with possible buyers over the last several years and while some deals came close, “they never quite came through.”

Located in Lunenburg, Vt., Stinehour had 21 employees, and a small group will stay on to complete the projects currently in the pipeline, a process that will take six to eight weeks. Founded in 1952, Stinehour combined quality book design with production techniques that earned it more than 50 awards over the last couple of years. Its customer list included a number of museums plus Random House, Little, Brown and many university presses. Bingham said all the ingredients remain in place to be successful, but that “we just need capital.” He hasn’t given up hope for a last minute reprieve. “Let’s hope this cat has nine lives and that it’s only used eight,” Bingham said.