The reason for the change in strategy is not yet known, nor who decided to pull the pin. The two companies were both owned by the MAN Group until manroland was 70 per cent bought by private equity from Allianz three years ago, since when its financial performance has markedly improved. MAN Ferrostaal, a Euro1.7bn turnover business, has just been 70 per cent bought by an Abu Dhabi investment fund, the International Petroleum Investment Company. MAN Ferrostaal’s main business is industrial construction and engineering, building petrochemical plants and the like.
In many countries including the US, Canada, the UK, most of Europe, China, Japan and India manroland has been establishing direct sales organisations over the last ten years. Now with the ending of the agreement with MAN Ferrostaal manroland will have a direct sales presence in Latin America, South East Asia, Africa and Australasia as well.
Markus Haefeli, managing director of MAN Ferrostaal Australia, said, “I will be re-evaluating the direction of the business over the coming weeks. However MAN Ferrostaal will be focusing on those markets where we have a track record of success such as packaging with the Bobst agency as well as pre press and print finishing with the likes of MBO, Kolbus, Palamides. We will also be concentrating major resources on our consumables service which includes name top brands such as Kodak and Lüscher amongst others. Our goal is to ensure that our customers receive the best possible deals and first class service regardless of the type of press they are running.”
In web offset manroland is the world’s number one manufacturer, and counts PMP as its leading customer in Australia, with a suite of Lithoman heatset webs installed over the past two years. In sheetfed it is one of the pack behind Heidelberg in terms of sales, fighting with KBA, Komori, and Ryobi in the large format, B1 and B2 sectors.
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