Koenig & Bauer is poised to enter a growth phase based on foundations in digital print technology that it has built in recent years.
Announcing a Spotlight programme to focus on growth sectors and margin enhancing products and services, Koenig & Bauer CEO Dr Andreas Pleßke states: “We have now almost completed the sowing phase and want to reap the harvest. This will also be aided by the Spotlight programme, in which we are prioritising initiatives and business models that boost earnings and financial strength, deprioritising initiatives that do not directly impact earnings and optimising the group and segment organisation as well as the indirect cost structure to make processes even leaner and more customer friendly.”
There are no details about how this will operate, whether certain products will be discontinued for example. The growth offensive was first launched in 2018. Since then Koenig & Bauer has grown says of its inkjet Rotajet, benefitted from its partnership with HP on preprint corrugated printing and developed a joint venture with Durst for post print digital printing of corrugated and for carton printing. The Varijet 106 B1 carton press has now been released as a commercial product having completed a beta period.
Pleßke also talks of new business models, again without details. Koenig & Bauer has been investing in cloud based applications using large data sets to be able to optimise production performance for connected printers. It underlines moves to position Koenig & Bauer as a technology rather than a mechanical engineering business.
The announcements come with release of preliminary end of year figures in which Koenig & Bauer came in slightly ahead of its sales targets with revenue at €1.327 billion with an Ebit of €29.9 million. The company says it successfully managed the increase in costs, helped on the energy from by self generated electricity from solar panels fitted to factory roofs.
The order intake at the end of the year stood at €1.29 billion (€1.33 billion). This is stronger than others in the industry and has been helped by a substation order for banknote technology from the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing. This lifted incoming orders for the division to €538.8 million (€392.9 million).
New orders in the sheetfed division fell short of the €813.5 million from last year at €606.2 million. The 2022 figure had been boosted by post pandemic sales while the company has noted a pre Drupa impact on 2023 decision making.
Order take in digital and webfed rose 9.9%, almost all due to digital technology. Profits in the division are still impacted by start up costs, which increased as new products in flexo, corrugated and digital print came to launch.
Drupa aside (on which the company anticipates spending up to €10 million), the company is expecting 2024 to result in revenue of €1.5 billion and Ebit of up to €30 million. Sheetfed will provide a lesser share of this as “a wait and see attitude ahead of the industry’s leading trade fair could lead to a purchasing restraint”.
