Technical editor and digital print specialist Sean Smyth gives his view on the news that Flint Group has re-entered the digital arena by acquiring Xeikon.
The news that Flint has purchased Xeikon is interesting. Flint is a leading supplier of flexo plates (and sleeves) and inks for litho, gravure and flexo. Flint has concentrated on traditional analogue print and packaging markets since it sold the Jetrion inkjet business to EFI back in 2006, and it has announced it will form a new Digital Printing Solutions division with Wim Maes (Xeikon’s CEO) becoming the new president.
As is usual when these acquisitions are announced, both parties express their satisfaction about the deal, and this one is no exception. Xeikon has excellent technology in documents and labels& packaging, and it has built up a several hundred million euro business. This makes it quite small in comparison to most of its competitors, and it has seen how difficult it is to bring new digital technology (Trillium) onto the market. It is also spending a lot of money to provide a support infrastructure in Asia where there is high growth.
At Labelexpo it showed a series of ‘Fusion’ concepts adding to the core powder toner technology, and it will want to continue the Cheetah developments – a wider version is needed for flexible packaging, which is a great opportunity. This will be expensive, and being owned by an investment company means they have to make difficult choices in where to allocate their cash.
For Flint the move makes sense, it gives the company access to the digital sector that is performing much better than the analogue print processes. It is a leader in flexo across the world, so has routes to market and a ready made service infrastructure that Xeikon could only dream of for the ThermoFlexX business. But also for the Xeikon kit, to label and packaging producers, as well as to commercial printers. Flint’s commercial print customers are taking up digital alongside and replacing their analogue equipment, and this is increasingly happening in packaging, so buying Xeikon provides access to the market with a healthy, growing business.
So it appears that this deal will be a good one for all parties, I hope so as further developments are necessary in packaging where resources and routes to market are needed.
This may not be the last acquisition – so welcome back to digital!
