Siris installs Jacobson as EFI CEO
Print industry veteran and former Xerox CEO Jeff Jacobson is the new CEO of EFI, succeeding Bill Muir who has stepped aside for 'personal reasons' after 10 months in the job.
Jacobson was brought on by new EFI owners Siris private equity last month as an executive partner, to oversee its US$1.7bn invesetment in EFI. Now he will run the company.
Siris bought EFI in a leveraged buyout that will see EFI gain a debt of around $1bn. EFI has just passed the $1bn sales marker. Alongside its consistent inkjet revenues Siris is aiming to realise super-charged growth in packaging and textile printing from EFI for its returns.
Jacobson said, “I am thrilled to be expanding my role on EFI’s leadership team to identify opportunities for innovation across the company. EFI’s portfolio of best-in-class solutions presents an exciting opportunity to drive further growth in high-quality inkjet and integrated, digital workflows. Together with my experienced and talented colleagues on the EFI team, we will provide the leadership needed to help EFI accelerate the transformation of industries where colourful images matter. I also want to join the EFI team in thanking Bill for his contributions to the company’s success and wishing him the best in his future endeavors. Bill played a pivotal role in successfully positioning EFI for the next chapter of our evolution, always doing so with integrity and the best interests of customers and employees.”
Jacobson has had several high profile roles in the supply side of print, rising to prominence as CEO of Kodak Polychrome Graphics, then as chief operating officer of Kodak Graphic Communications, before he took over as CEO and president of Presstek.
In 2012 he joined Xerox as its CEO, before he was ousted a year ago after a bitter boardroom battle with major shareholders Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason over the proposed sale of Xerox to Fujifilm, which Jacobson wanted, while Icahn and Deason did not. The year-long dance with Fujifilm over who will own the company cost Jacobson his job as CEO, and currently has Fujifilm suing Xerox for US$1bn over the failed US$6.1bn merger.
EFI was established in 1989 by Israeli genius Efi Arazi, who had previously founded Scitex, Israel's first high tech company, which developed and sold its hugely successful electronic page make-up systems to printers around the world in the 1980s. Arazi was the first to see the writing on the wall for the million dollar systems when the rudimentary Apple Mac appeared, and sold Scitex to Creo before the end of the decade. Creo was later bought by Kodak as part of its strategy to deal with the impending end of its film business. EFI sales in its first year were around $2m, last year they touched the $1bn marker.