COMMENTARY: Tribute on Merger Talks Breakdown

This brings me to the crux of my argument. I believe that for the merger to go ahead that a substantial investment would be needed to make it happen. Since that now appears unlikely to come from the sale of the manroland sheet fed business, the funding would have to come from the investors. Here is the problem. manroland has not been the get rich quick investment that Allianz had hoped for, and they certainly would not want to put in more money for a small share of the combined company. The briefing to Reuters that manroland were pulling out of the merger because of the lower than expected level of orders in Heidelberg is in my opinion to use the American term, pure BS. In fact from what I see, despite the lower level of orders in Heidelberg, the company has been successful in its cost reduction measures freeing up cash flow.