Richard Rasmussen, director of Ascent Partners, wraps up last month in the industry with more closures in the newspaper sector, Spectrum’s return to manufacturing in Christchurch, and a new label business is opened in the same city.
Market Movements
Fairfax and News Limited newspapers continued their plant closures, this time The Waikato Times (Hamilton, NZ) and Gold Coast Bulletin (QLD). APN also closed its Ballina site.
Four sales / acquisitions were made – PMP Canberra / Focus Press (NSW), KB Print / Centurion (NZ), Top Print / CMYK Hub and finally the liquidated pre press house, Pageset, sold its clients base to Geoff Pearce.
A new label business, Foxcil (NSW), was launched by Roger Kirwan and over in Christchurch, Spectrum opened a new plant after the earthquake forced it out of manufacture around two and half years ago. Focus Press (NSW) also opened its new $6.1 million Government funded site.
In other news, Brand Print (VIC) moved into a larger site and Amcor announced it would demerge its Australasia Packaging Distribution business
On the local supplier side DES and Finchers merged in WA whilst Minipak (NZ) moved to larger premises.
Globally, HP opened a 3,000 square metre Scitex Ink factory next to its Indigo ink manufacturing plant. Kamma sold its bottle printer business to KBA, and newspaper systems vendors, Saxotech and DTI, merged with the help of a private equity firm, Vista Equity Group.
Major Equipment Sales and Installations.
Web printers, Franklin Web are installing a Lithoman 80 pp and PMP Clayton a 96 pp Duplex heatset web.
Manroland sheetfed presses were also sold with Colorpak purchasing an R 706LTTLV press and Hannapak and an undisclosed Melbourne printer also purchasing 706 presses. CMYK Hub installed a new Ryobi 920 five colour press in around July 2013 in their WA facility.
Digital press sales / installations were also in the news – Hero Print NSW installed a Kodak Nexpress SX 3900 (March 13), Excel (NZ) a Fuji Xerox I Gen 150, Wickcliffe (NZ) a I Gen 4 with finishing. Kosdown (Vic) installed the MGI Meteor DP 8700 XL and Rocket Print (NZ) an Indigo label machine WS 4600.
HP had a good month with the reported installations of a Scitex FB 500 UV flat bed at Lotsa (QLD), a Designjet L28500 at Fineline (VIC), and at Quality Press (WA) a Scitex FB 700 and Designjet LX 26500.
A Roland DG Pro 4 XF – 640 was installed at Brave Design (NZ) and Mezographic (VIC) installed a Fujifilm Uvistar Pro 8 Grand Format printer.
Pre Press wise, the only reported installation was in New Caledonia where Editions and Impressions du Pacific installed a Heidelberg Suprasetter A75.
On the Bindery and Finishing side, packaging printer, AMR Hewitt (Vic) installed a Heidelberg Varimatrix 82 CS diecutter, Print Finishing Line (WA), a BQ 280 PUR binder and Fineline (Vic) a Horizon Stitchliner 5500.
Businesses for sale
Ascent Partners has seven print related businesses on the market, with new listings in WA and VIC. The level of enquiry is mounting specifically for client lists that can be rolled into other sites as well as businesses being sold as going concerns.
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