The world’s largest web offset manufacturer manroland is negotiating the purchase of Swiss newspaper press maker Wifag, with the deal expected to be finalised later this year. No details have been given on the terms, which are likely to be favourable to manroland. Wifag’s turnover in 2008 was around CHF500m, (A$520m) but the 2009 figure is likely to be substantially reduced.

After purchasing the latest Watkiss booklet maker, along with a Digivac collator, Whitianga-based newspaper The Informer has sped up production of its 5500-run weekly community paper, which it distributes from Mercury Bay to Whangamata.

APN News & Media, the company that publishes the New Zealand Herald, the Listener and other major kiwi newspaper and magazine titles, turned to a full-year profit after impairments pushed its previous year’s results into the red, saying a pickup in trading in the fourth quarter has continued into the current year.

Blue Star Print Group has reported earnings of $20m for the first half of 2009-10, which represents a 163 per cent improvement on the six months ended June 30, 2009. However, this is still down on the pre-global financial crisis performance of $27.6m for the six months ended 31 December 2008.

With the European debut of Fujifilm'’s Acuity Advance HS taking place at the Sign & Digital UK 2010 show in April, Fujifilm New Zealand has signalled that it is looking forward to releasing this latest model very soon.

Len Murphy, who founded his own machinery company, has passed away after more than six decades of service to the New Zealand printing industry.

Organisers say that the 10^th annual SWUG (Single Width Users Group) annual conference, which it deferred in 2009, will take place at the Wairakei Resort, Taupo on from October 13-15, following the PrintNZ conference, which takes place from October 11-13 at the same venue.

It appears that the B2 format sheet fed digital press may be the Holy Grail for press manufacturers. In the 1990s Indigo regularly brought a mock up of a future B2 format press to the different trade shows.

As entries for Pride In Print head into their last week, organisers and patrons are doing all they can to assist anyone trying to put forward work for the competition.

The buffeting the global print industry suffered in the latter half of last year has been reflected in the latest set of figures from merchanting giant PaperlinX. The company’s merchanting sales for the six months to December 09 fell across the board, with Australian, New Zealand, European and North American operations showing double digit declines, making a volumes increase in Asia the only bright spot for the company.