Japanese electronics giant Brother Industries has bought UK bar-code printer Domino Printing Sciences in a deal worth £1 billion ($A2 billion).
Japanese electronics giant Brother Industries has bought UK bar-code printer Domino Printing Sciences in a deal worth £1 billion ($A2 billion).
Brother says it has formally completed the acquisition of Cambridge-based Domino after meeting all the conditions of the offer announced in March.
Domino Printing Sciences, founded in 1978, soon established a reputation for the development and manufacture of coding, marking and printing equipment, and became one of the world’s biggest bar-code printers after government regulations that introduced 'best before' dates and medicine tracking numbers.
However, analysts at Barclays said a recent move into the rapidly growing digital printing market has seen Domino struggle as it competes against bigger rivals like Epson and Xerox. In a profit warning last June, Domino cited an increasingly competitive environment in Asia and said that its spending on digital printing research and development would weigh on earnings.
Peter Byrom, chairman of Domino, told The Financial Times that the changing marketplace required the company to find a larger partner. “The markets in which Domino competes are evolving, with the increasing adoption of digital printing technology attracting a new breed of competitor with significantly greater scale and financial firepower than Domino,” he said.
Domino will continue to operate as a stand-alone division in the combined business under the terms of the deal.
Australian distributor Trimatt Engineering & Integrated Systems welcomed the move. “We’re very optimistic about the deal and see it as a positive step,” said Matt Johnson, MD of Melbourne-based Trimatt, which distributes Domino’s range of mono colour UV and water-based Digital inkjet systems in Australia. “The fact that Domino will continue as a stand-alone operation in the UK says a lot and it means that with Brother’s manufacturing and engineering expertise and its financial backing, Domino will be able to build on its success and bring products to the market even quicker."