Highcon is gaining a new CEO as Shlomo Nimrodi steps back to be active chairman of the digital finishing equipment company.
And after a turbulent five years at the helm, which Nimrodi says felt like “a different crisis every year”, the turnaround work has been completed and Highcon is poised for the next development stage, he says.
Yair Alcobi officially takes up the role on 1 August. At the same time Nimrodi becomes active chairman and current chairman Alon Bar Shany steps back but continues as on the board alongside former Scodix CEO Adina Schorr and Benny Landa. Alcobi trained as an engineer, spending 27 years at Orbotech, including seven years in the Far East, before becoming CEO of 3D printing business XJet. He has crossed paths with many current Highcon personnel, particularly from Orbotech.
He takes up the reins as Highcon comes out of a successful Drupa. “We have generated positive momentum in 2024 and Drupa has carried that positive momentum forward, so he will not be starting from scratch as a business. Now is the right time to bring fresh blood to take the company to the next stage.”
Nimrodi plans to work alongside Alcobi for a transition period. In the longer term while Alcobi handles the day to day operation, Nimrodi will be active in raising finance needed for projects like Vulcan, its design for a large format corrugated cutting and creasing machine.
While the company is not complacent about its prospects, it has installed 80 laser cutting and digital folding machines, with some customers operating multiple units. It has machines in at the largest groups where due diligence is thorough and can be lengthy. Deals can also be delayed by mergers and acquisitions activity, though it has signed a deal to supply one of DS Smith’s plants in France.
“So even with M&A activity we are able to complete deals,” he says. Highcon is also reaping the rewards of a partnership approach with corrugated board producer BHS as part of its Box Plant 2025 project and with Sealed Air. Nimrodi will look after these relationships.
Highcon has been talking with Alcobi since March this year and was able to invite him to Drupa, to both see the size of the industry and how Highcon sits within it. Other visitors says Nimrodi commented on the advances made since the last Drupa in 2016. “The feedback we received was along the lines of ‘where are the brown edges?’ and ‘what about the registration issues?’ That has all gone. We received 500 new leads at the show, something that would normally take five years to build. we now have our work cut out following these up.”
The company has settled on the packaging and display graphics sectors and as well as existing partnerships is in conversations with print technology companies in this area, including the likes of EFI and Barberan. “There’s acknowledgement of the value that Highcon brings to the current market challenges, particularly for short runs, but not only short runs. we have a customer in Switzerland that is producing very long runs but which wants to produce them 5,000 at a time. This is manufacturing on demand where Highcon’s value comes into play.
