Von Hoffmann

Salt Lake City-based AlphaGraphics reports it is planning to reach 500 locations over the next five years. Ingrid Wilmet has joined Impressions Inc. of St. Paul, MN, as an account manager. Kim Hawley has joined Dallas-based Taylor Publishing as vice president of sales and marketing for the Taylor Specialty Book division. He most recently held the position of sales manager for the Commercial Book division of Walsworth Publishing. Richard Eade, formerly of Butler Color Press, has joined Inserts East in Pennsauken, NJ, as director of operations. Des Plaines Publishing, Des Plaines, IL, announced that Michael Ford has joined the company as president and CEO.

By Warren Chiara Mergers and acquisitions in the printing industry over the past year resulted in some changes at the top of BookTech Magazine's annual Top Book Manufacturing listing—ranked by book manufacturing sales. One change concerns the perennial Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on the list. When RR Donnelley acquired Moore Wallace last year, it changed the way the $8 billion company breaks down its revenues. It used to report the performance of individual units, but now casts revenues into two major business components: publishing and retail services, and integrated print communications and global solutions business. The latter category accounts for 40.2 percent

ST. LOUIS—Von Hoffmann Corp. announced it was integrating its two-plant facility Precision Offset Printing into Lehigh Lithographers, of Pennsauken, NJ, in a move to reduce costs and consolidate its services for customers of materials printed on plastics and other synthetic substrates. Precision Offset, which employs about 110 people at its Leesport, PA, and Dauberville, PA, facilities, is a leading manufacturer of plastic products, including overhead transparencies and plastic inserts for educational textbooks. Von Hoffmann will incur a pre-tax charge between $4 million and $4.5 million in the first quarter of 2004 to cover severance payments, relocation costs and the write-down of certain fixed assets that

Keeping in line with the supersizing trend, BookTech—The Magazine's list of the top 25 book manufacturers has been expanded to include the 30 highest grossing book printers in the United States and Canada. The decision to add to the list was to offer a more expansive look at those manufacturers at the top of their field. The types of products offered by the various companies run the gamut from fine editions to best-selling paperbacks to trade publications to textbooks to yearbooks. More detailed information about each printer follows the list in the form of brief synopses. In addition to expanding the list, there have

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