Stationery firm gets new owner
Stationery distributor New Zealand Office Supplies has been acquired for an undisclosed sum.
The company, which employs 34 staff and has offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, was placed into voluntary administration on May 1 by its sole director Michael Manikas, and administrators Steven Khov and Kieran Jones of Khov Jones were appointed administrators.
The administrators and NXP, the country’s largest supplier of business supplies and cleaning products to the corporate and government sectors, came to an agreement for the business to change hands.
Auckland-based NXP will officially take over the business, which acquired the exclusive rights for Fuji Xerox paper products last year, early next week.
Joe Taylor, chief executive of NXP, would not disclose how much was paid for the company.
“These are incredibly challenging and uncertain times for business and their staff, and we wanted to move quickly to reassure employees that all will have a job available to them and, for the company’s customers, it will be business as usual,” Taylor told the Weekend Herald.
Staff will be offered new contracts at their same pay rates, and their normal pay will resume as part of the acquisition, he said. The business received $239,000 in wage subsidies and its staff had been receiving the minimum weekly payment.
NXP was in a strong financial position and had not applied for the wage subsidy, Taylor said.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work with the Government in the last six weeks, in particular on PPE supplies, face masks and sanitisers — our biggest selling items of late,” he said.
“New Zealand Office Supplies is a great fit for us, because we’re very strong in large corporates and large government. It really complements our business well as it predominantly services small and medium enterprises around New Zealand.”
Taylor said NXP would continue to run New Zealand Office Supplies as it was before the acquisition.
Earlier in the week, administrator Steven Khov told the Herald the business was “not as viable as it should have been” before Covid-19, but the pandemic had tipped the company over the edge.