PMP has been forced to delay its planned merger with IPMG by almost two months to allow the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to take a closer look at the proposed deal.

Sydney’s Dominion Print Group acquired 30-year old commercial print business Graphitype Printing Services from retiring co-owners/directors Dave and Kath Morris. “Nobody’s gone broke so it’s really a good news story for the industry,” says Kelvin Gage, Dominion’s CEO (pictured).

“The Productivity Commission is like a deranged hairdresser insisting their client wears a mullet wig,” says Man Booker Prize-winning Australian author Richard Flanagan. Books Create Australia called on the government to reject the commission’s recommendations on copyright.

Whew! What a year! Filled with surprises and disruption, 2016 is one for the records. In our own small pond of the Australian and New Zealand printing industry it was also a year of radical change. Plenty of crisis but along with that a great fund of hope and ambition to carry us forward towards 2017.

Spicers - formerly PaperlinX – agreed to a plan that it hopes will end a long-running dispute with hybrid shareholders and restore the company’s capital structure. Hybrid-holders would take a 68.3 per cent stake in the company and Spicers chairman Robert Kaye (pictured) would stand down.

The establishment of a duopoly in the commercial printing sector was the biggest story of 2016, according to industry bible IndustryEdge. "The difficulty is that as with all industrial scale rationalisations, there will simply have to be casualties."

When the rooster crows at the break of dawn…“Look out your window, and I’ll be gone,” so goes the Bob Dylan lyric. By the end of January 2017, it will be the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese calendar, possibly a good time for us all to wake anew and face brand new days, writes Andy McCourt.

Jet Technologies has completed its purpose-built climate controlled ink distribution centre at its in plant in Jakarta, where it will feature the 'revolutionary' UV flexo PureTone range from UK-based narrow-web print specialist Pulse Roll Label Products.

Komori president Satoshi Mochida says despite a ‘murkier’ outlook for the ‘less than robust’ world economy, the press giant will continue to push forward in 2017 with initiatives aimed at innovation and transformation.

Astounding discovery of Harry Brelsford’s link to Swiss genius proves special theory of general relativity is more widespread than first suspected.

Starleaton welcomed the acquisition of its major wide format supplier Neschen by Blue Cap - a Munich-based investment company with a profile in the graphic arts sector. “Blue Cap is not a typical private equity company in that it does not have exit strategies from the word 'go,'" says CEO Ben Eaton (pictured).

UPDATE: PMP shareholders have overwhelmingly voted to approve the company's merger with IPMG, with 99 percent in favour of the deal.

Well-known industry identity Steve Dunwell is retiring from his role as managing director of manroland Australasia. He announced the appointment of Dennis Wickham as the new managing director, with Andreas Schwoepfinger, as the new director of technical services.

Most people outside of the printing and graphic arts industry learn about our industry from books. The incredible range and scope of all other things printed, from wallpaper to solar panels, is hidden behind the veil of text and images on paper.

Engineers from KBA in Germany will fly into Sydney early in the new year to put the finishing touches on a new KBA Rapida large format sheetfed offset press at Centrum Printing. “We had a total of nine containers to unload," says Centrum MD Sandra Mascaro.

Australian packaging group Orora expanded its US presence with a $59 million acquisition of New Jersey printer The Register Print Group, a high-end point of purchase retail display provider.