Richard Rasmussen Market Watch November 2011

It’s sad to see the iconic brand manroland in the news having filed for insolvency. It speaks volumes for the declining equipment sales, predominately of sheet-fed offset presses since 2008. They certainly have strong market shares in the packaging and heat-set web market, but obviously that high share and falling volumes in commercial printing were not enough to save them. We can only hope that in the ensuing restructure, much of the business and staff can be retained.

The other major news was the Opus / McPhersons deal, which will see Opus take over McPhersons Printing (one of Australia’s largest book printers), and list on the stock exchange.

In Melbourne consolidation continued unabated, with four sales of commercial printers – BR Printing, Manark Printing, Typographical Services and Contemporary Press were all sold during the month (the first three with Ascent Partners acting as their sales agent). These were all sold to other commercial printers as going concerns.

Geon continued to trend of the larger groups to consolidate their manufacturing facilities. One of the major ones to relocate was from their Brunswick plant, the previous Impact Printing site.

The market is purchasing new equipment, and some of those are manrolands – a 700 Hi Print in Tahiti, and a sale of a large Lithoman to PMP in WA. Bindery equipment is still going in, with some good Horizon orders from a recent Currie road show in WA.

The largest / longest offset to go in was at Bambra Press in Melbourne, a XL 74 – 12 colour, which replaced two presses. Over in NZ, Ryobi had some success with two of their presses going into Christchurch’s Kalamazoo. HP Indigo continued their good run with another two press installation being reported.

Full details of these and other mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, new machinery installations / sales and businesses we have on the market, can be downloaded in our Market Watch bulletin from our web site, www.ascentpartners.com.au. Previous editions are also available. Alternatively you can automatically be supplied this bulletin via monthly bulletin subscription (free of charge).

We’re always on the lookout for more Australian print related businesses to market. Contact Richard Rasmussen at Ascent Partners on 0402 021 101, or enquire via our web site. Demand is very good for client lists, and as shown last month for businesses to be sold as going concerns.