VIRGINIA (From news reports) -- A printing company with a local history that goes back more than 100 years is closing its Henrico County plant and laying off 184 employees.
Cenveo Worldwide Ltd. is shutting down its Cadmus plant by May 31, the company told state officials in a WARN Act notice dated May 4.
The plant provides printing for publishers of magazines, comic books, journals and direct mail advertisements, but the company said in its notice to state officials that the coronavirus pandemic has hurt business. The unforeseen circumstances made it impossible to provide a 60-day notice, the company said.
The closure of the plant is permanent, the company said.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely impacted our customers' businesses and, in turn, has diminished the available work at the facility," the company's regional human resources manager, Laurie Burger, wrote in the notice. "One large customer has ceased all work permanently, several publishers have canceled or delayed their print projects, and nearly all comic production has ceased."
Cenveo, which is based in Stamford, Conn., acquired the local operations including a 254,000-square-foot plant in 2007 in a $430 million buyout of Richmond-based Cadmus Communications Corp.
At the time of the buyout, Cadmus employed about 500 people in the Richmond area and was the world's largest provider of content management and production services for publishers of scientific, technical and medical journals, and the fifth-largest printer of periodicals in North America.
Cadmus traced its roots to the founding of William Byrd Press in Richmond in 1913. The company was created in 1984 by the merger of William Byrd Press and Washburn Graphics Inc. of Charlotte, N.C.
Cenveo has at least 30 other operations in the United States and in India that provide printing, envelopes and labels.
