LANGLEY POSTS UPBEAT RESULTS

Langley Holdings, parent company to Manroland Sheetfed, posted record profit before tax for the first six months, and said the print industry is facing monumental changes.

Chairman and CEO Tony Langley said demand for traditional print media is “dwindling” but said demand for packaging print and other areas are “increasing strongly”, and its Print Technologies Division , which includes Manroland Sheetfed and Druck Chemie, are “adapting and rising to the challenge.”

The Manroland Sheetfed business was the hardest hit of all Langley’s businesses during the pandemic, but has now gone through a streamlining and factory reorganisation, the results of which the company says will be seen next year.

The company now has 1500 staff, with 900 in Germany and the rest working in the 40 sales and service organisations around the world, which Langley said “made a positive contribution” to the first half results. In ANZ the Manroland Sheetfed operation is owned by the Web Offset company, which dominates the heatset web market, as it does every else.

Langley bought Manroland Sheetfed a decade ago, when the company went into administration, with the Web Offset part of the business sold to a German industrial conglomerate.

In an upbeat Chairman’s Review of first half trading, Tony Langley said that the group had posted a new record Profit Before Tax (PBT) for a first half and was continuing its post-pandemic recovery.

The group recorded a PBT of €52.2m for the 6 months to June and is forecasting €125m for the full year, on revenues of €1.3bn. Net assets rose to €873.4m, up from €844.4m a year ago. Consolidated cash stood at €248.4m.