HUNTINGTON -- Champion Industries must be doing something right.
The company has set quarterly earnings records for seven of the last nine quarters, starting with the first quarter of 2006. Shortly before that, it faced the devastation of Hurricane Katrina at a plant in New Orleans.
The growth is not because of a thriving printing industry, said Marshall T. Reynolds, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Champion. It's a matter of strategy.
"What's going right is we've moved some people around and got some people with abilities in the right spot, where they have a chance to hit the ball -- and most of them are doing that," Reynolds said. "I think it's more the game of people than circumstances. The printing business nationally has been pretty flat, so we do services now, mailing services as an example."
Champion Industries Inc. is a commercial printer, business form manufacturer and supplier of office products and office furniture. It sees annual revenues of more than $140 million and serves the area east of the Mississippi River through regional divisions.
It has subsidiaries in several states. Companies and divisions include:
Chapman Printing (West Virginia and Kentucky); Stationers, Champion Clarksburg, Capitol Business Interiors, Garrison Brewer, Carolina Cut Sheets, U.S. Tag and Champion Morgantown (West Virginia);
Champion Output Solutions (West Virginia); The Merten Company (Ohio); Smith & Butterfield (Indiana and Kentucky); Champion Graphic Communications (Louisiana); Interform Solutions and Consolidated Graphic Communications (Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey); Donihe Graphics (Tennessee); Blue Ridge Printing (North Carolina and Tennessee) and Champion Publishing (West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio).
Champion Industries has 918 employees total, 405 of whom work in Huntington with either Chapman Printing or The Herald-Dispatch.
It purchased The Herald-Dispatch in September 2007.
A strategy for the company's success is involvement with several service-type businesses that no printers were into five or 10 years ago, Reynolds said.
"That's changing the product mix and so on, with pretty good results," he said.
Its record-setting quarters may have started as early as 2005, had it not been for Hurricane Katrina's destruction of the New Orleans plant.
"We got beat up terribly down there," Reynolds said. "Actually, we ended up moving what was left of that plant and consolidating it into the Baton Rouge plant, so it was a tremendous expense for us back in the year when Katrina hit.
"When you have a project going like that, it consumes everybody. The cost is really greater than you realize because folks are in cleanup mode that otherwise would be creating revenue. So, yeah, it was a tough deal for us. It probably cost us $3 million or probably a little more than that. Not much fun. You wouldn't want one of those every year."
But since then, business continues to branch out and see steady growth. Champion stock on the market is under-valued, Reynolds said.
"But every bank stock that you can name today is probably undervalued," he said.
Champion is in the game for the long term and shareholders should be the recipients of a reasonable investment along the way, he said.
"It's a pretty solid investment because we are the company, the only company in this industry, that has a fortress balance sheet," he said.
A what?
"It's like a fortress," Reynolds explained. "The ratios, when you hit them, they're sort of impenetrable -- then you call it a fortress balance sheet. And you're supposed to be able to withstand anything with the fortress -- like we withstood Katrina."
Contributing to Champion's successes over the past year was the purchase of The Herald-Dispatch. In September 2007, the company purchased the newspaper and its subsidiary, River Cities Printing, for $77 million from GateHouse Media. GateHouse had bought The Herald-Dispatch from Gannett Co. Inc. the previous spring.
It's the first time the newspaper has been locally owned since the early 1970s.
"By and large, people in the community I've talked to feel pleased that the newspaper is back under local ownership," Reynolds said. "I think the thinking there is that if it's under local ownership, there will be more community focus and (it will) come from a more introspective position."
His approach to newspaper ownership is like all his subsidiary companies -- it's decided on a case-by-case basis.
"I've basically had my hands on things that are broken," Reynolds said. "The Herald-Dispatch is a good business. It's run well, and there are some really good people down there. Certainly, you have people who know a lot more about that business than I know. They're moving in the right direction."
What he likes is when he sees the newspaper involved in community events -- such as fundraisers for children's organizations.
"I think the newspaper ... will be more involved than it has in the past, not because of me but because of the conscience of the people there and an awareness that perhaps they've always had, but they've also had some restrictions (from corporate). That's what I think."
It's important that local businesses, regardless of who they are, reinvest in their own community, he said.
"Those are the jobs for the kids tomorrow -- these companies," he said. "We have to develop greater appreciation for (the local companies) because they're going to be funding our grandchildren and we need to develop an awareness of them."
He has strong roots here. He came to live in Huntington when he was 6 years old. He has two sons and five grandsons here, and he wants to see a town that was built primarily on rail companies and manufacturers like the nickel plant thrive. To do so, you have to help these local businesses thrive, he said.
"I don't think that our buying Huntington Publishing is a big deal -- I think the fact that we've turned to local ownership is a very positive thing for the future of our community," Reynolds said. "Whether it was us, or the guys down the street who bought it, I don't think it matters."
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