Continental has completed the acquisition of Trelleborg’s printing blanket business, 18 months after the deal was first announced.
This brings together the ContiTech and Trelleborg ranges covering brands like Vulcan, Rollin, and ContiAir and Phoenix. And it adds manufacturing sites in Italy, France, Slovenia, Brazil, US, Japan and China with 600 employees to the ContiTech sites in Germany and China which employ 800. As well as offset blankets, these produce flexo sleeves.
According to head of non automative activities for Continental Surface Solutions Sven Hlywiak the deal will be good for both customers and employees.
He says: “Two global players are joining forces. Not only do the products complement each other, the employees of the two companies are also united by a corporate culture of openness and respect. This will result in even better products and services – at competitive conditions, for the benefit of our customers.”
The deal needed to be assessed and passed by competition authorities from around the world, and in some countries this takes longer than in others says spokesman Axel Schmidt. This meant that while the announcement was made in November 2021, the closing could not happen until May this year. While the approval process was expected, Contitech had hoped to have everything signed off by October last year.
It represents a major consolidation of the printing blanket market, at least as far as European manufacture is concerned. Flint still owns the DavidM, Duco and Day International brands while Kinyo is the leading Japanese brands available in Europe.
The move has been welcomed too by Dario Porta, president of Trelleborg Printing Solutions, who says: “I am delighted that we will now be part of a large and powerful corporation,” he says. “We will bring our experience and know-how to the existing team of printing experts at Surface Solutions and learn from one another. Together, we will continue to expand our business.”
The sale ends any interest in the printing industry for Trelleborg.
