Heidelberg and Ricoh Announce Global Strategic Cooperation

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY—Feb. 23, 2011—Ricoh Co. and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) announced a global strategic cooperation, starting with a global distribution contract for Ricoh’s Production Printing Product portfolio. This agreement enables Heidelberg to sell Ricoh’s latest color digital press, the Ricoh Pro C901 Graphic Arts Edition, as well as appropriate future production printing offerings in Ricoh’s pipeline.

The global strategic cooperation, which includes Ricoh services and support, will start in April 2011. The first markets will be the United Kingdom and Germany, with a phased rollout to follow in other geographies with completion targeted for drupa 2012.

The Ricoh Pro C901 Graphic Arts Edition features a production speed of 90 pages per minute (ppm) and is an ideal solution to meet the expanding demand for shorter print-runs, variable data printing and rapid delivery on a wide range of substrates.

Both companies are committed to delivering a value-added offering that drives long-term profitability for their customers. Entering into a global distribution contract is the first step of the strategic partner cooperation between the two companies. Heidelberg’s and Ricoh’s future plans are to include integration with Heidelberg’s industry standard workflow solution in the graphic arts industry, Prinect, as well as joint development activities for future printing applications.

Shiro Kondo, Ricoh president and CEO, said, “In today’s climate, it is important that commercial printers have the right tools to be versatile, and meet both long- and short-run requests. Heidelberg is the gold standard in commercial and packaging printing. This partnership demonstrates its confidence in our digital technology and the ability of Ricoh to meet the needs of the graphic arts industry. Together, we are in a strong position to support businesses seeking to extend their existing equipment and services with a digital solution.”

“In Ricoh, the rising star in production printing, we have found an ideal strategic partner who shares our values of customer focus, environmental sustainability, innovation, quality and customer service,” noted Bernhard Schreier, CEO of Heidelberg. “By rounding off our offset portfolio—including Anicolor technology—with new digital printing equipment, we are providing our clients the combination of best-in-class offset, and now also digital printing-technology.

“Utilizing both, our customers are able to offer variable data printing as well as shorter runs, next to their established cost-effective and high end quality offset printing. With this new partnership we will also address customer demands in the broad spectrum of hybrid print applications, i.e. the combination of offset and digital printing within a single print product.”

As a world premiere, Heidelberg will display the new strategic partnership with Ricoh at the digi:media tradeshow from April 7-9, 2011, in Duesseldorf, Germany. The visitors will explore a seamless, live production portfolio, starting with job offering and ordering using the internet, Prinect workflow integration combining Heidelberg Anicolor Offset and Ricoh Pro C901 digital printing technologies, rounded off by Stahlfolder and Eurobind demonstrations for state of the art book and mailing production.

About Ricoh
Ricoh Co., Ltd. is a global technology leader, specializing in the office and production printing markets. Ricoh works with organizations around the world to modernize work environments and optimize document efficiency. With more than 108,500 employees worldwide, Ricoh operates in Europe, the Americas, Asia/Pacific, China, and Japan. Ricoh's worldwide sales were more than 2,016 billion yen ($21 billion USD) in the year ended March 31, 2010. www.ricoh.com

About Heidelberg
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) is the world-wide leading provider of solutions for the print media industry. The Heidelberg brand is internationally associated with leading technology, top quality, and closeness to customers. In financial year 2009/2010, the company had a sales volume of 2.306 billion Euros. As of December 31, 2010, the Heidelberg Group has employed a workforce of 15,981 including 772 trainees and apprentices. www.heidelberg.com

Source: Press release.