Landa Digital Printing is filing for court protection amid a “cash flow crisis”.
According to Israeli publication Globes, the company, which was started by Indigo founder Benny Landa, has filed a request with the court for a stay of proceedings “to give [it] the required time to exhaust procedures with strategic organisations”.
In a statement issued to media, Landa Digital Printing said, “Despite the company’s significant achievements, the time it has taken to reach the full realisation of its business potential is longer than expected.
“The geopolitical situation, as a result of the long war in Israel and regional instability, as well as commercial reasons, have made it difficult for the company, and the shareholders who have financed the company throughout its years and they recently informed the company’s management that they intend to stop financing the company immediately.
“As a result, the company has found itself in a cash flow crisis. In response, the company has carried out a reorganisation process in recent weeks, as part of which significant cuts were also made to deal with the situation and enable the continued realisation of its potential.
“The company’s employees and customers have been updated on the situation and will continue to be updated as relevant developments occur, out of understanding the complex situation in which they find themselves and out of deep appreciation for their work and their full commitment to the company.”
According to Calcalist Ctech, the company has debts of NIS 1.75 billion (approximately A$790 million), with about NIS 1.4 billion (approximately A$632 million) owed to investors holding secured creditor status.
The development comes just weeks after local media reported that the company was also planning to lay off more than 100 employees – more than 20 per cent of its workforce.
Speaking exclusively to Sprinter last year at the Landa stand during drupa, Benny Landa was asked directly whether his newly launched products – the S11 and the S11P machines, which are the successors to his S10 and S10P machines – would be distributed in Australia.
While he confirmed interest in the market, he did not commit to a timeline for introducing the new S11 and S11P presses locally, citing a current focus on the northern hemisphere – particularly Europe, the US, and China.
“I love Australia, and I love Australians, and we are definitely going to be there,” he told Sprinter.
“But we don’t want to come to any country until we have a decent foundation and infrastructure where we can support the customers. We will get there, but it won’t be in 2024.
“Be patient, we promise we will be there – big time – drupa has been phenomenal and amazing for us – digital printing is here.”
A number of Australia’s largest printers made one-on-one approaches to Landa to purchase his printing equipment at drupa – with one printer offering to buy two products – but even this was not enough to convince Landa to start servicing the local market earlier than scheduled.
During the launch of his new machines at a pre-drupa press conference in May 2024, Landa said digital printing will never actually kill offset printing – only complement it.
“I think offset will be around for a very long time, and perhaps forever,” Landa told Sprinter at the time.
“If you do an offset set up once and you create a printing plate once and your information doesn’t change – it can produce one million or two million or even three million times – in this instance there is no justification for a digital product.
“Offset will be the ‘niche’ in the future, because the mainstream market now requires much shorter runs and variable information. Long jobs of exactly the same image – that will be the niche and that’s where offset will continue to be strong.
“We have customers that have removed offset presses and installed our presses instead, but what happens is, not only do they become more profitable by using our press, their offset press becomes more profitable as well.
“This is because they have moved everything under 10,000 to our press and the offset press becomes much more reliable and profitable because there are now fewer changeovers and less wasted work.”
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