Realignment of press maker Koenig & Bauer’s business will see newspaper printing included in a ‘special and new technologies’ division with the closure of the former ‘digital and webfed’ segment.

A media release announcing the reduction in the number of segments failed to mention either newspapers or web-fed printing, but corporate communications and marketing director Dagmar Ringel told GXpress, “Newspaper printing is of course still part of our business.”

She says it was difficult to find a name that describes all the products and solutions “in a crisp way.

“You can certainly continue to rely on Koenig & Bauer as a partner,” she assured us.

The other segment post-realignment is ‘paper and packaging sheetfed systems’.

Koenig & Bauer says the change will enable leaner structures in the holding company.

There are other major changes afoot, with the recruitment of Christian Steinmassl (top) – previously head of Heidelberg’s packaging division – to group management on December 1, and the departure of Michael Ulverich.

With the role of central chief operating officer being eliminated, Ulverich is leaving the company at the end of this month and resigning from the executive board, where the group says “generational transition” continues.

The path adopted in 2014 will see the transition from unitary to a divisional group, “with a new segment structure that is aligned even more closely to current and future customer needs and the relevant business model.

“The group’s focus will remain on the high-growth packaging market,” chief executive Andreas Plesske (pictured) says in the announcement.

All previous activities of the ‘sheetfed’ segment are being consolidated within the new ‘paper and packaging sheetfed systems’ segment. “As well as this, the corrugated cardboard activities for the Chroma series bundled under the Celmacch joint venture, and of the Durst joint venture, will be allocated to this segment.

“Bundling of folding carton and corrugated board activities in one segment is our response to customer needs due to the strong technological and cross-customer overlap of these groups,” deputy chief executive and chief financial officer Stephen Kimmich says.

The statement continues, “the ‘special and new technologies’ segment will consolidate the previous activities of the ‘special’ segment (banknote and security printing, systems for industrial marking and coding and special systems for metal and glass/hollow container direct printing), as well as the remaining activities of the former ‘digital and webfed’ segment. This includes the special packaging printing applications, primarily web digital and flexo web printing. Likewise, the partnership forged between Koenig & Bauer and the Volkswagen subsidiary PowerCo for the development of dry coating for battery cell production will be integrated in this segment. New applications (inspection systems and protection technologies) will be spun off from security printing into an independent Vision & Protection business unit.”

The group has also announced that Christian Steinmassl – previously head of Heidelberg’s packaging division and with experience at paper machine maker Voith – will join group management on December 1.

He will take an unspecified role in the new ‘special and new technologies’ segment and holding responsibility for production, the ‘vision and protection’ and Kyana (formerly ‘digital unit’) business units and operational shared services within the group.

With the changes, will come a cut in the number of executive board members to two, with further steps to reorganise it “to be taken incrementally”.

“All these plans are embedded in a gradual generational transition in 2024 and 2025 from today’s long-standing members of the executive board to candidates who constitute an excellent fit for the company’s strategic priorities,” supervisory board chairman Raimund Klinkner says.

Pictured top: New responsibilities – Christian Steinmassl (photo Heidelberg)