COMMENTARY: Tribute on Merger Talks Breakdown

Meanwhile Heidelberg had introduced its VLF sheet fed presses aimed at the profitable packaging market, and from what I understand it has in terms of orders taken over market leadership in this area, to the detriment of manroland.

This brings me to the subject of the merger. Major over capacity in press manufacturing, particularly in Germany, while at the same time as a real drop in order intake, made everyone in the industry and its financiers sit up and think. The concept of a merger between Heidelberg and manroland made a lot of sense particularly if some operations could be spun off. The logical spin off was the manroland sheet fed division, as Heidelberg was by far the leading player in the market. manroland however is the leading player in the web offset area for both commercial printing and newspapers. It was a logical blend if someone could take on the manroland sheet fed press business. Speculation was that the company to do this would be Shanghai Electronics, but they were seriously tied up in investing to be the second largest shareholder in the Goss web offset business. One has to wonder why it was thought they would be a suitable company to move into sheet fed offset when one of their main interests is in building up their inkjet business.