Leading printing equipment supplier Aldus Engineering has merged with label machinery manufacturer Tronics to form Aldus-Tronics.
“Aldus has always been looking into areas where we can expand in the printing and packaging industry and I’ve known Frank [Floriano], one of the directors at Tronics, for many, many years - he actually served his apprenticeship here at Aldus,” says long time Adlus GM Ian Guanaria, who plans to retire later this year.
“Frank and I got to talking about six months ago and it went from there. We’re definitely very, very happy about the deal. We’re in the same industry and share a lot of the same customers so the two businesses complement each other very well. Tronics is a manufacturer of labelling machinery and ink jet coding equipment in Melbourne and we’re more on the printing side with labels and flexible packaging. We’ll all benefit from a combined approach to sales and service around Australia and New Zealand.
“We’ll merge the Tronics plant at Silverwater in Sydney into the Aldus facility at West Ryde by the end of March," says Guanaria. "They have a manufacturing plant at Broadmeadow in Melbourne, which will stay where it is at present, as will our Printing and Converting Division at Scoresby in Melbourne. Tronics also has operations in the US and Malaysia and we see no change to that in the near future. We’ll still be running two operations so there will be no major staff changes at this stage.”
Floriano has been named CEO of Aldus-Tronics and Guanaria will remain as general manager for the time being.
“I plan to retire this year after 45 years in the business and it all came together at the same time,” Guanaria says. "It’s time to hand over the baton to the younger generation. I’m 67 years old now and I want to spend more time working with my son and a little bit more time sailing. But I will be staying on for the best part of this year to help with the integration process."
Aldus Engineering, established in 1949, has been serving the graphics industry in Australia, New Zealand & South East Asia for almost 70 years. Originally manufacturing flexo printing presses and slitting systems, Aldus now distributes and services Mark Andy printing presses, Rotoflex slitters, Tidland air shafts, Fife edge guides and tensions control systems, and Epson digital presses. Aldus also has a paper mill that specialises in the supply of equipment and accessories for the paper making industry in Australia and New Zealand.
Tronics is a leading supplier of locally designed and manufactured label application machinery, serving industries across Australasia since 1985. Since 2001, Tronics has been the Videojet distributor in Australia and New Zealand, and has subsidiaries in the United States, New Zealand and Malaysia.
Aldus-Tronics will be launched at Auspack 2017 in Sydney in March. The merger deal is expected to be completed by June.
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