Israeli media is reporting that HP is the frontrunner to buy the beleaguered Landa Digital Printing business, but says if it does the deal it will pay only a fraction of the amount the company was thought to be worth.
Tech insiders believe the Landa, which has had US$1.3bn in funding over the years, will be sold for a firesale price, which will be in the range of US$100m to US$200m. Four years ago Landa was mulling a float on the Nasdaq that it believed would have brought in US$2bn.
The sale of the business is being managed by Japanese investment bank Nomura, which has opened the doors of the Landa data centre to HP, and to a who’s who of global print technology developers, including Agfa, Brother, Canon, Epson, Fujifilm, Koenig & Bauer and Xerox.
Landa Digital Printing is currently five days into a 14 day freeze on its debts under the Israeli Title 10 court protection, giving time for buyers to negotiate a deal.
According to local Israeli media, revenue at Landa Digital Printing in 2022 was US$35m, against losses of US$148m, and in the following year revenue rose to $47m, but losses increased to US$164m. There are no audited figures for last year. However the ration of $4 loss for every $1 of revenue has reportedly not changed last year, or for the first five months of this year. The company is in debt to the tune of half a billion US dollars.
Israeli media says shareholders pulled the pin on further funding after a review found the company would not break even until 2030, and realised it would need a further cash injection of US$300m to get there.
The major shareholder is German BMW heiress Susanne Klatten through the Altana chemicals company and her Skion investment vehicle, however on 22 May she turned over control of her companies to her children, who subsequently decided they did not want to go forward with Landa, precipitating the current cashflow crisis. The Rausing family that owns Tetra Laval (Tetra Pak) is also a shareholder.
First launched at drupa 2012 in a dazzling presentation by company founder Benny Landa, the 30 tonne nanographic presses took another decade to become available, and only then in certain parts of the world. They cost printers between US$3.5m and US$4m each, plus several hundred thousand dollars in installation fees. They are believed to cost more than that to manufacture, with Landa's strategy to recoup the money on ink and maintenance fees. There are 51 operating today, in Europe, the US and China. A fifth of print companies that installed the Landa nanographic presses installed a second Landa press.
Benny Landa has had a tough few years, with all four of the companies he founded or became majority shareholder in after he sold Indigo to HP for US$830m hitting the skids. As well as Landa Digital Printing, those companies included lab-grown diamonds company Lusix, which was sold for just US$4m after raising US$150m in investment funding, cleantech company GenCell which has seen its share price collapse by 98 per cent, and digital die cutting manufacturer Highcon, which is in bankruptcy protection and has laid off most of its staff.
