Page 34 - Print21 November-December 2021

2021 Review
September
Print industry super fund Media Super
and Cbus signed their merger agreement, and said the funds are now working towards completing the merger process by the middle of next year. The Media Super brand will remain, and the fund said it will remain committed to supporting the print industry.
Queensland mailhouse Smartcomm made its biggest ever investment, spending in excess of $5m on a new smart factory that is fully air-conditioned, and on new equipment to up its production capacity.
News Corporation told all its Chullora print staff not to come to work next week unless they have received at least one
dose of the Covid vaccine by Sunday. The Chullora site now prints all Sydney’s main newspapers, including those published by News and those published by Nine (formerly Fairfax), including the Telegraph, The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review.
Imports of printing and communication papers into Australia dropped by 27.7 per cent in the 12 months to June, and by 23.4 per cent in New Zealand, but they did start to recover at the end of the year. According to industry bible Pulp and Paper Edge total paper imports were 303.5 kt, with what the analyst described
as a “dramatic” one-year decline equating to Australia’s imports dropping by 116.6 kt.
In another hit to print the days of a multitude of mail coming to you each time
you buy and sell ASX listed shares may be numbered, spelling bad news for print and mail houses involved in the trade. The ASX says it will continue to offer paper-based comms, but on an opt-in basis. Annual report and accounts were made opt-in 15 years ago, killing off one of the more lucrative sectors of print in one
fell swoop, and damaging the industry in the process. Today only one per cent of investors ask for printed report and accounts.
Online printer Yintong Corporation has placed the biggest order ever taken by RMGT (formerly Ryobi), and one of the biggest
ever, for 56 offset presses, comprising 338 printing units. The sheer size of the order from the China-based business has caused RMGT to add to its workforce, to ensure the
Print takes another hit: Share trade notices also now allowed to be sent electronically rather than in print
34 Print21 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
Going big: Tate Hone at Avon Graphics with the country’s first Durst P 350 HS wide format print system
order is met, and that lead times for other customers do not blow out.
In its biggest wide format investment
to date, Avon Graphics was installing Australia’s first Durst P5 350 HS system, significantly boosting its production power, and becoming one of the first printers in the world to take the high speed printer.
Queensland packaging and commercial printer Platypus Print Packaging has ordered Australia’s first Koenig & Bauer Rapida 106 X, as part of a major modernisation drive at the Geebung factory. The major
new press investment will join another six- colour with double coater from the German manufacturer. The new Rapida 106 X will ship in January and be installed in March.
Global digital flexible packaging print giant ePac Flexible
obligated to do so. The mandate will last for as long as the Health Order is in place
IVE Group bought Active Display Group and AFI Branding, two of the biggest players in the display graphics field, as the company looks to the post-Covid recovery.
IVE is paying just $6.5m for the two businesses, from which it is anticipating $4m net profit after tax. IVE will pay $5.2m upfront, with another $1.3m payable in two years if certain targets are met. Soft signage outfit AFI Branding will retain its name.
AFI was owned 50/50 by ADG and AFI managing director Glenn Watson, with ADG owned by advertising agency WPP, which acquired it six years ago following its sale by the Gittus family, who are still involved with the business. to STW a year earlier.
Printers around the country were dusting off their passports and looking at a full schedule of overseas industry trade events next year, as Qantas brings forward international flights and suggests a return to a full timetable. First off the blocks is the EFI Connect user event in Las Vegas January, followed by the Hunkeler Innovation Days in Switzerland in February. The first LabelExpo since 2019 takes place in April in Brussels, with global wide format show Fespa slated for the end of May in Berlin, and Printing United in Las Vegas in October.
Opening in Australia: ePac digital packaging printer building plant in Melbourne
Packaging is
building a plant in Australia, with the Melbourne site set to be operational by the end of the year. The first ePac production facility will open eight kilometres from the Melbourne CBD, at the new Newlands Road
Press orders: Heidelberg CEO seeing a return to investing
Rainer Hunsdörfer, CEO at offset press giant Heidelberg, told Print21 the company is seeing
a surge in orders and investments in its print solutions from “all over the world” with printers “looking to invest in
new products” on the back of “market recovery everywhere” from the impact of Covid. Speaking to the editor at the
food manufacturing hub, located in the heart of Coburg’s thriving industrial district. It will be headed by Jason Brown, formerly group divisional general manager at Ball & Doggett.
October
October 15 was deadline day for print workers in Victoria, with those classed as authorised workers needing to have at least one Covid vaccination by the end of the day, in order to come into work on Monday, under the state government’s health order.
Under the Health Order print staff under the authorised worker category who turned up for work without proof of vaccination were to
be refused entry to the site. Because it is a state government mandated order, print bosses would not be not facing any legal action or financial penalties for refusing entry to non-vaccinated staff, in fact they are
company’s Innovation Week, Hunsdörfer said Heidelberg was “increasingly optimistic” both for its own business and for the print industry. However, he won’t be
around to to see much of the recovery, as he is set to leave in April after five years at the helm.
The Covid-battered
Out of Home (OOH)
industry saw an
increase of 50.5 per
cent on net media
revenue for the third
quarter of 2021, and
says it is poised for a strong rebound as lockdowns end in Sydney and Melbourne.
However, print’s share of outdoor media continues it slip, third quarter figures reveal that print now has 39 per cent of the market with digital at 61 per cent. This time last year print was on 42 per cent. Print was more than half of all
IVE buys big:
CEO Matt Aitken
announces IVE
has bought
Active Display
an AFI Branding outdoor media spend in 2018. 21
The big issue: Vaccinations
in the workplace