Müller Martini is the big winner from the withdrawal of Heidelberg from the saddlestitching and perfect binding markets.
The Swiss specialist will take over service and support for the discontinued products, while some packaging orientated products will be manufactured for Heidelberg by Chinese OEM partner Masterwork Machinery.
Heidelberg chief executive Gerold Linzbach says production of the finishing machines at its German sites is “no longer competitive” under current market conditions. It will continue to make folding machines – at the former Stahl site in Ludwigsburg – and supply Polar paper guillotines. Masterwork will make the Diana folder-gluer, to be sold and serviced by Heidelberg.
The announcements follow comments in June, when Linzbach spoke of “portfolio optimisation” including new business models for products on which margins were low. The “humbled” German sheetfed press maker expects to save about 30 million Euros a year from the measures.
The Leipzig site is to be closed and a total of 650 staff cut at Ludwigsburg and Wiesloch-Walldorf.
Established for almost two decades, Masterwork makes printing, packaging and testing equipment, selling into the USA, UK, Ukraine, Spain, Australia, Peru, Egypt, Japan and South Korea. It makes high speed automatic diecutting and foilstamping equipment and a folder-gluer.
Muller Martini says it will take over the worldwide service and spare parts business and “complete know-how” of the machines produced in Leipzig by the end of 2014, for an undisclosed sum.
Chief executive Bruno Müller says the transfer is an “optimal solution” for Heidelberg customers since print finishing is its core business: “We will do everything we can to transfer the know-how efficiently to our organisation because we want to provide Heidelberg customers with reliable service support smoothly and seamlessly,” he says.
Heidelberg’s origins in the bindery segment go back to 1949, when Stahl – which it bought in 1999 – was founded by Kurt Stahl and Adolf Döpfert in Ludwigsburg. The growing company had bought US brands Macey and Baumfolder in 1991, and McCain-Brehmer in 1994. A year after the Heidelberg acquisition, however, the name was relegated to Stahlfolder, a brand introduced at DRUPA.