manroland ramps up production for demand

Press manufacturing giant manroland Sheetfed increased its sales in 2020 by five per cent, and is ramping up production in anticipation of increased demand.

Sales for 2020 were €214.7m, up from €203.5m the year before, although orders fell by 10.8 per cent to €54.6m.

After implementing short time working a year ago, the manroland Sheetfed factory is now back in full production, anticipating growing demand for its Evolution series presses.

Rafael Peñuela Torres, CEO at manroland Sheetfed, said “As in many other businesses our growth path until beginning of 2020 was disrupted by the pandemic. But finally we have observed during the last months in most of the countries, a significantly increased number of projects for new machinery, especially in large size."

Rival Heidelberg stopped production of large format (larger than B1) presses in 2020, leaving manroland Sheetfed and Koenig & Bauer as the only two players in the market.

Peñuela Torres said, “The level of new orders in the first weeks of 2021 confirms the change of trend in our industry. In order to anticipate a higher demand for our printing presses we are increasing with immediate effect our factory’s output to shorten lead times.”

During the year, the parent company Langley Holdings sold approximately 37 acres of surplus land next to the manroland factory in Offenbach in a €19m.

Langley Holdings also owns printing chemicals specialist Druck Chemie, which had a “very successful year”, after it switched production to make hand sanitiser. Sales were €59.4m, virtually the same as the prior year, with the hand sanitiser making up for a significant downturn in chemicals to the print industry.