KBA IS TO BUY FLEXOTECHNICA from the troubled Cerutti group to add to its packaging supply portfolio. Flexotechnica is a producer of CI flexographic presses for film packaging and the purchase will sit alongside KBA’s already strong position in carton printing. At Drupa last year, KBA showed the Varius 80, its first press for printing on flexible films, but using litho technology.
Flexotechnica employs around 100 staff at a factory near Milan. It outsources manufacture of component parts, providing an opportunity to switch to KBA’s own casting and engineering facilities. KBA has agreed to pay close to €10 million for the business, which will complete once antitrust authorities have provided a ruling, something that will take a few months.
THE SITUATION IS FURTHER COMPLICATED by the plight of Cerutti’s core publication gravure business. On Monday last week, the company issued a statement to announce it was to restructure under the provisions introduced by the Italian government in September last year. This affects only the publication gravure side of the business not Flexotechnica nor the packaging gravure operations in Casale Monferrato, which is also the base for publication gravure.
President and CEO of Officine Meccaniche G Cerutti Dr Giancarlo Cerutti says that market conditions have forced the move to ensure that the business has a future. Demand for new gravure presses has been hit by the availability of secondhand presses as companies like Prinovis, closing a plant in northern Germany, consolidate.
“FACED WITH THE COLLAPSE IN demand for presses for newspapers, magazines and catalogues, we cannot do nothing. The path through the restructuring process laid down by Italian law for OMG Cerutti is necessary for the future: it will be a painful passage, but we believe, will lead to a rebirth.”
Ironically five years agowz KBA sold its publication gravure press business to Cerutti to help with industry consolidation. Now hopes for Cerutti’s future rest on gravure for packaging. UK customers include Polestar Sheffield for the gravure presses and Harmsworth Quays Printing in Didcot for the company’s flexo newspaper presses. KBA’s ability to act has been enabled by recovery in its financial position. In 2012 group sales rose by 10% to almost €1.3 billion with an operating product of €30 million, more than triple the €9.9 million pretax figure of 2011.
THE COMPANY ATTRIBUTES THE to a double digit increase in new orders for sheetfed presses, with a slight operating profit in the final quarter of the year. However, the company has taken a special depreciation of €30 million as the emphasis is away from more price competitive sectors towards more profitable orders and products. This depressed the pretax profit to just above last year’s €3.3 million. However it bodes well for future years and CEO Claus Bolza-Schunemann has promised to return to paying shareholders a dividend for the year.
The manufacturer has also been successful in shifting away from commodity litho products, earning 30% of sales away from the competitive sheet and webfed sectors. The acquisition of Flexotechnica falls into this strategy. The web sector suffered from a dearth of new projects, but the year ended with an order backlog of €650 million, not as high as last year, but above the three prior years. Cost saving measures being instigated in the manufacturing operations will improve the profitability of both web and sheetfed divisions by 2014.
