"I am satisfied with our first quarter financial results, which show that our profitability has increased while we continue the transformation of our organization,” said François Olivier, President and Chief Executive Officer of TC Transcontinental. "In the printing division, the demand for our retailer-related service offering remained relatively stable. Furthermore, we implemented initiatives aimed at continuously optimizing our printing platform, namely the consolidation of our Québec newspaper printing plants. In addition, we will transfer to Hearst the operations of our California facility as of April 2018. Consequently, we will repatriate state-of-the art equipment to some of our Canadian plants, which will generate synergies mainly starting in 2019. "In the packaging division, this year's first quarter results were mainly affected by timing differences in purchases at one of our plants, but we anticipate that organic sales growth in 2018 will be similar to 2017. In addition, we pursued in a very active manner a number of promising acquisition opportunities. Click Read More below for additional information.

Net sales in the quarter were $1.93 billion, up $66.9 million or 3.6% from the fourth quarter of 2016. On an organic basis, consolidated net sales increased 2.6% driven by significant volume growth in the International segment. Gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2017 was $365.0 million or 19.0% of net sales versus $363.7 million or 19.6% of net sales in the prior year quarter. Income from operations was $104.6 million in the fourth quarter compared to a loss from operations of $466.9 million in the 2016 quarter. Net loss attributable to common stockholders from continuing operations of $52.8 million in the fourth quarter compared to a net loss of $488.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Fourth quarter net sales were $999 million, up $80 million, or 8.7%, from the fourth quarter of 2016. After adjusting for acquisitions, changes in foreign exchange rates, and pass-through paper sales, organic net sales decreased 4.6% from the fourth quarter of 2016. Fourth quarter 2017 net loss was $58 million, or $1.68 per diluted share, compared to net income of $9 million, or $0.26 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2016. The effective tax rate for the fourth quarter of 2017 reflected $24 million of one-time provisional tax expense related to the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which will be further detailed in the 2017 Form 10-K, as well as the impact from non-deductible goodwill impairment charges. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of 2017 was $85 million, or 8.5% of net sales, compared to $80 million, or 8.7% of net sales, in the fourth quarter of 2016. Click Read More below for additional information.

Kingsport Book LLC is excited to announce the launch of its newly built Kingsport Book Commercial. Kingsport Book Commercial was built with the goal of being able to offer the most competitive, short-run four-color book and commercial printing solution available in the industry. Phase 1 of this multi-million expansion continues to build on the goals established by PCC (Printer Consolidation Co.), a Blackford Capital portfolio company to build a world-class company focused on the ever-changing needs of the book printing industry. Kingsport Book, located in Church Hill, Tenn., has developed a strong reputation as a high-end book finishing and fulfillment company. To complement the deluxe bindery operation, a sister company has been built to service short-run offset and digital printing needs as well as to support the surrounding areas with the most advanced equipment available. In the expanded 135,000-sq.-ft. facility, a 10-color Komori perfecting press has been installed along with finishing, prepress and digital equipment. Click Read More below for additional information.

Edwards Brothers Malloy announced that it plans to consolidate all offset printing operations into its Ann Arbor, Mich., location by the end of 2018. As a result, it will be closing its offset printing facility located in Lillington, N.C., which will impact the job positions of approximately 100 workers employed there over the next nine-month period. “This was a very difficult decision,” said John Edwards, Edwards Brothers Malloy president and CEO, in a prepared statement. “We continue to see shrinking demand for offset printing and double-digit growth in digital printing. We want to increase our digital footprint and be sure we’re well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities and new markets.” The phased shutdown of the Lillington offset printing facility is planned to begin in April and should be completed by the end of the year, according to the company. Edwards added that the move will lead to “some” job growth in Michigan and that Lillington employees are encouraged to apply for work at its Ann Arbor location. Click Read More below for additional information.

HP Inc. announced commercial availability of its HP Indigo 12000 HD Digital Press with breakthrough high-definition imaging, the next step in the evolution of HP’s market-leading1 Series 4 large format press platform with more than 700 units installed worldwide. The High Definition Imaging System for the B2-sized HP Indigo 12000 HD Digital Press doubles image resolution, delivering sharper, smoother, finer print, enabling print service providers (PSPs) to surpass offset quality and open new digital possibilities in high-end commercial and photo applications. The press uses an all-new High Definition Imaging System, using 48 parallel laser beams and high screen sets up to 290 LPI. Click Read More below for additional information

Quad/Graphics, Inc. announced it has acquired Ivie & Associates, a premier marketing services provider and one of the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing privately held companies in the country. The business combination creates a powerful marketing solution that addresses clients’ increasing need for improved process efficiency and marketing spend effectiveness. The combined offering, fueled by both companies’ talent, expertise and technology, will provide clients unmatched scale for onsite marketing services, integrated execution, and expanded subject matter expertise in digital, media and creative. Click Read More below for additional information

Net earnings improved during the fourth quarter of 2017 to $55 million, an $18 million year-over-year increase, despite a 2.8% decrease in net sales to $1.2 billion. Organic sales decreased 2.8% due to ongoing industry volume and pricing pressures, after excluding pass-through paper sales (-0.3% impact) and favorable foreign exchange (0.3% impact). Net earnings improved for the year ended December 31, 2017 to $107 million, a $62 million increase from 2016, despite a 4.6% decrease in net sales to $4.1 billion. Organic sales decreased 3.5% due to ongoing industry volume and pricing pressures after excluding pass-through paper sales (-1.1% impact), and is consistent with the Company’s previous guidance. Net cash provided by operating activities was $344 million for the year ended December 31, 2017. Free Cash Flow was $258 million, compared with $246 million for 2016, and was at the top end of the Company’s guidance range. Click Read More below for additional information.

LSC Communications announced a major investment in its Book Platform to boost productivity, capacity and efficiency. LSC will invest in its Willard, OH facility with the installation of a new Goss wide-web press and a new high-speed binding line. This investment will support the continued strength of the 4-color book market category, making LSC’s Willard, OH location the most advanced 4-color plant in the United States. Dave McCree, President of the LSC Book Group commented, “LSC will continue to grow and expand its supply chain and publisher services offerings, yet also strongly believes in the need to continue to advance its core print capabilities. This investment solidifies our position as the category leader, delivering innovative solutions to our Publishing clients.”

Quantum announced industry leader Cheryl Kahanec as its new CEO, effective February 16, 2018. Kahanec has more than 35 years of experience in the marketing communications and digital print industry, including transitioning traditional print companies into early digital success stories. In her leadership role at Quantum, she will drive the company’s strategic vision to continue to develop integrated and innovative solutions to help marketers succeed in today’s technology and data-driven marketplace. “After an extensive national search, we are excited to welcome Cheryl as Quantum’s new chief executive officer,” said Peter Cahall, chairman of the board of directors for Quantum. “She is one of our industry’s top innovators and an authority in our field. Her extensive expertise, demonstrated success and passion fit perfectly with our commitment to providing service and solutions for our customers.” Click Read More below for additional information.

The sixth annual Inkjet Summit will be held at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., April 9-11, 2018. The Inkjet Summit is an invitation-only, hosted event specifically designed for senior managers and business executives at printing companies and corporate enterprises who are looking to develop strategies, understand their options and make major investment decisions around production inkjet digital printing technology. The focus of the 2018 Inkjet Summit will be on sharing insight on key factors of successful production inkjet press adoption. Panels and presentations will include sessions on press implementations, sales requirements, end-to-end workflows and technology options. Application segments covered include everything from Transaction and Direct Mail/Marketing through Publishing (books, catalogs and magazines), General Commercial and In-Plant printing. Click Read More below for additional information.

•Digital transformation bearing fruit – subscription model attracting considerable interest, with further growth in demand for innovative digital packaging and label presses •New Heidelberg Digital Unit to significantly expand e-commerce…

Sun Chemical will increase prices on all offset inks and coatings for its customers across all regions, effective March 1, 2018. The percentage increase will be in the high single…

LSC Communications (NYSE: LKSD) and Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company announced jointly today that they have agreed to enter a supply-chain-services agreement. Beginning in March 2018, LSC will supply a…

From an outsider’s perspective, things seem to be going smoothly for Quad/Graphics, considering it consumes 250 million pounds of ink per year, according to an article recently published by BizTimes. …

Cenveo, Inc. (NASDAQ:  CVO) (the “Company”), a diversified manufacturer of print-related products including envelopes, custom labels, commercial print, and publisher solutions, today announced that it has reached an agreement with…

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (Nasdaq:EFII), a world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today announced its results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2017. For the quarter…

FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (“Fujifilm”) (TSE: 4901) and Xerox Corporation (“Xerox”) (NYSE: XRX) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to combine Xerox and their longstanding Fuji Xerox…

As part of an ongoing commitment to enhance its scholarly publisher services, Allen Press, Inc. is growing the team that delivers those services. This includes the promotion of Mark Kohlhase…

Flint Group’s CPS Inks division announced today that they will implement a global price increase of up to 9% on offset and publication gravure inks, coatings and pressroom consumables effective…

Deluxe Corporation (NYSE: DLX), a leader in providing small businesses and financial institutions with products and services to drive customer revenue, announced its financial results for the fourth quarter ended…

Xerox and Electronics For Imaging (EFI) today demonstrated a new Fiery® digital front end (DFE) that will give print providers a powerful new tool to manage high value jobs that…

François Olivier, President and Chief Executive Officer of TC Transcontinental, is proud to announce the appointment of Pierre Marcoux as President of the Media Sector. TC Media is a leader…

Effective January 21, 2018 the United States Postal Service (USPS) will increase mail and shipping rates across the board. Publishers and marketers who utilize mailing services will be affected by…

Printing company LSC Communications, a Chicago-based spinoff of Fortune 500 company R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., is closing its plant in Long Prairie, Minn., resulting in the layoff of 236…

Arandell is excited to announce that it is now G7 certified for both proofing and press by Idealliance. A G7 certification is a specific set of industry leading processes that…

Industry thought leader Denise M. Gustavson has been tasked with leading NAPCO Media’s Printing, Packaging, and Publishing Group, which includes Printing Impressions, packagePRINTING and In-plant Graphics magazines, among other brands,…

Andrea Tonin, Innovation Director, makes a case for why off-set printing may be the new choice for brands to get packaging on store shelves with speed and agility. Off-set printing first gained widespread use in the newspaper industry over 100 years ago, thanks to its fast turnaround of large printing quantities. Today brands need to respond almost as quickly as news outlets to put the latest packaging designs in front of consumers. Getting new packaging to store shelves faster is the rationale behind Amcor’s recent investment in EB off-set print technology. Advancements in off-set technology for packaging offer excellent print quality, flexibility in order size and faster speed to market. It’s the latest technique to consider for promotions, editions and even designing current events into packaging – going from artwork to print in a matter of hours or days instead of weeks. Click Read More below for additional information.

A preliminary determination on Jan. 9 by the U.S. Department of Commerce to impose countervailing duties (CVD) ranging from 4.43% to 9.93% has U.S. newspaper, book and commercial printers that buy imported Canadian uncoated groundwood paper seeing red. That's because it will deliver a severe blow to their bottom lines due to what amounts to an average countervailing duty of 6.53%. In its investigation, the Commerce Department calculated a preliminary subsidy rate of 6.09% for Catalyst Paper, 9.93% for Kruger Trois-Rivieres, and 4.42% for Resolute Forest Products Canada. Click Read More below for additional information.

Mohawk, family owned paper makers since 1931, have entered into a strategic partnership with commercial printer Lawton Connect, family owned since 1900, to form Mr. Scratch Off LLC. This partnership has been formed around the introduction of an innovative new technology using HP Indigo printing to produce the first 4-color, scratch off printed products in the world. Currently, printing for scratch off products uses single or multi-color printed images which are covered by a single-color fixed shape, applied with a flexographic press. This new capability allows both the scratch off area and the image beneath to be a multi-color print and fully variable from piece to piece; all using high resolution, HP Indigo printing. Click Read More below for additional information.

Cheetham joins Allen Press with more than 30 years of experience selling magazine, catalog, insert and direct mail printing to the association, publication and retail markets while Kopp joins Allen Press with over 20 years of experience in B2B business development, serving clients in print, marketing, healthcare and technology. “We are very excited to add Rick and Bill to the Allen Press team and expand our sales presence to new markets,” says Maria Preston-Cargill, Allen Press Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing. “Both Rick and Bill have invaluable knowledge in sales and print which I believe will serve our current and future clients well.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. has announced a partnership with Epic Products International, an Arlington, Texas-based designer and manufacturer of equipment that enhances the quality and productivity of the printing process. The venture will enhance Konica Minolta’s AccurioJet KM-1 program, which markets and promotes the KM-1 to print providers worldwide. Founded more than 40 years ago, Epic specializes in coating systems for offset and digital printing, which run in-line or near-line in both web and sheetfed press configurations. The Epic CT-750 system is known for its high performance and versatility. It supports UV, aqueous and specialty coatings such as soft touch and blister, as well as spot coating. This solution is capable of running near-line or in-line at press speeds. The Epic coater can provide protection and appeal to every printed sheet. Click Read More below for additional information.

Deluxe Corporation announces Deluxe NEBS will officially change its name to Deluxe. For the past several years, Deluxe NEBS has continued to operate as the NEBS brand in Canada, providing exceptional printed products and small business services to its clients across the country. Deluxe NEBS has been a staple of Canadian small business marketing services for the past 35 years, leading the industry in innovative cheque and business printing solutions. In 2004, Deluxe Corporation of Shoreview, Minnesota, purchased New England Business Solutions (NEBS) and continued its strong performance as a trusted and valued company specializing in the design, manufacturing and distribution of personalized business products. Click Read More below for additional information.

Fort Dearborn announced that it has completed its acquisition of NCL Graphic Specialties. The combination enhances Fort Dearborn’s leadership position in the decorative label and packaging marketplace by broadening the company’s geographic footprint, capacity and capabilities. NCL has two facilities located in Waukesha, Wis. and Menomonee Falls, Wis. bringing to a total of seventeen production locations across North America for the combined organization. The combination will broaden both companies’ capabilities to provide an even higher level of service to customers. The company’s product offering will now include: cut and stack, pressure sensitive, roll-fed, shrink sleeve, stretch sleeve and promotional labels, as well as flexible packaging. Click Read More below for additional information.

Transcontinental Inc. announced that, effective April 2, 2018, TC Transcontinental will transfer to Hearst the printing operations of its Fremont, California facility where Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle — the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast — and its related products are printed, and post-press services are conducted. Under the terms of the agreement, TC Transcontinental will continue printing the newspaper in Fremont for a transition period. TC Transcontinental will receive a cash payment of US$42.8 million from Hearst as compensation for the early termination of the printing agreement, for the sale of some of its printing equipment, and for services to be rendered as part of a Transitional Service Agreement. The amount will be received mainly in 2017, and the balance in 2018. Click Read More below for additional information.

For those in the magazine and catalog printing and publishing segments, the past year has been nothing short of dynamic. Although there has been considerable consolidation and downsizing, these trends have opened up doors to other possibilities that are being embraced by printers and publishers alike: niche publications are on the rise and catalogs have evolved to tell their own story. Traditionally, magazines were driven by mass-market titles that could appeal to a wide audience, David Pilcher, VP of sales and marketing at Freeport, Ohio-based Freeport Press, explains. The industry has recently seen a shift in the types of titles that are seeing the biggest growth, he says, and its niche titles that are leading the march into 2018. “This year, we’re seeing publishers offloading many of these big titles,” he says. “Some are calling it chaos. We don’t see it that way. We see a definite trend toward niche titles, with viable business models that take advantage of a more selective consumer base.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Transcontinental Inc., announces the sale of its 50% stake in CEDROM-SNi Inc., a Montréal-based firm specializing in digital media monitoring, to CNW Group Ltd., a Cision company delivering Canadian media intelligence and news distribution services. As part of this agreement, the founders of CEDROM-SNi are also selling their stake to CNW Group Ltd., which now becomes the sole owner. CEDROM-SNi's employees, totalling approximately 110 people, remain employed in Montréal and in the satellite offices of Québec City, Ottawa, Toronto and Paris. Nicole Guillot, Cision's President of Canada and Corporate Director of CNW Group Ltd., noted, "We are very proud to acquire CEDROM-SNi, a company whose product and service offering is among the best-performing in the industry and is complementary to ours. By joining forces, we will be able to offer our customers an enhanced and diversified offering that is perfectly aligned with Cision's global vision to be a leading provider of earned media software and services at the crossroads of public relations, digital and social marketing. We are pleased to welcome the talented employees of CEDROM-SNi who bring leading-edge expertise to Cision, in order to pursue our growth together." Click Read More below for additional information.

With increasing demand in the printing industry for equipment that enables more frequent and faster job changes on press, Flint Group introduces a new, lightweight family of rotec® Sleeves and Bridges designed to increase press efficiency. The new rotec® product line provides the same proven polyurethane coating that is well-known for its durability and solvent resistance in a series of sleeves and adapters that are lighter and easier to handle. The rotec® Lightweight Premium Sleeve – a high performance, plate mounting sleeve offering weight savings up to 40% compared to similar premium sleeves – exhibits excellent dimensional stability for high printing speeds, making it particularly effective in the wide web printing sector. The key to its superior all-around performance is the combination of its light weight and ease of use coupled with the premium construction that provides added strength and stability. The sleeve is further enhanced with an aluminum end plate that seals the edges for extra protection against inks, cleaning liquids and humidity and provides optimum performance and longevity to the sleeve life. Click Read More below for additional information.

With the New Year quickly approaching and thoughts of resolutions, FCL Graphics took this time to reflect on all of the changes 2017 had in store: the company added staff to its leadership team, expanded its direct mail, finishing and binding capabilities, as well as capacity. FCL also has a newly designed website. FCL Graphics is pleased to announce that Amy O’Brien and Donna Caldarulo have joined the FCL leadership team. O’Brien joined in late August as controller and Caldarulo joined in late November as VP, sales support. The company hired both O’Brien and Caldarulo to strengthen its business financially and operationally. Click Read More below for additional information.

Fort Dearborn today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire NCL Graphic Specialties. The transaction is subject to the fulfillment of certain conditions and is expected to close by the end of the year. “As the largest cut and stack label supplier in North America, the acquisition of NCL would provide us additional capacity and would expand our footprint in the Midwest. The proposed acquisition would also enhance our product offering with promotional printing capabilities and enter us into the flexible packaging market,” said Fort Dearborn CEO Kevin Kwilinski. “With the anticipated addition of NCL, we’ll have an expanded breadth of products and services to better serve all of our customers.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Fiscal 2017 Highlights: Revenues decreased by $12.3 million, or 0.6%. Operating earnings increased by $89.2 million, from $212.8 million to $302.0 million. Adjusted operating earnings, which exclude restructuring and other costs (gains) and impairment of assets, increased by $9.9 million, from $283.4 million to $293.3 million, or 3.5%. Net earnings increased by $65.2 million, from $146.3 million to $211.5 million. Adjusted net earnings, which exclude restructuring and other costs (gains) and impairment of assets, net of related taxes, increased by $5.9 million, from $196.3 million to $202.2 million, or 3.0%. Maintained a solid financial position, with a net indebtedness ratio of 0.3x. Click Read More below for additional information.

Transcontinental Inc.'s Media Sector, TC Media, announces the sale of 12 of its publications, as well as their related web properties, to Groupe Lexis Média inc., a company owned by Mr. Elie Akoury and Mr. Frédéric Couture, who will act as President. In total, 75 employees of these various publications and 16 employees from TC Media's Production team are transferred to Groupe Lexis Média inc. TC Transcontinental also concluded a multi-year agreement for the printing and distribution of all of these titles as well as for the printing of the magazines already owned by Lexis Média inc. With the completion of this transaction, 60% of the publications included in the sale process of TC Media's local and regional newspapers in Québec and Ontario, launched in April 2017, are now in the hands of local owners. The newspapers sold to Groupe Lexis Média inc. are: Le Citoyen Rouyn-Noranda, Le Citoyen de la Vallée-de-l'Or, L'Écho Abitibien and La Frontière, distributed in Abitibi-Témiscamingue; L'Action D'Autray, L'Action – Wednesday Edition, L'Action – Weekend Edition, L'Express Montcalm and Hebdo Rive-Nord, in Lanaudière; Le Bulletin, La Petite-Nation and La Revue, in Outaouais. Click Read More below for additional information.

Idealliance expects commercial printing industry sales (all sources) to grow 1.5% to 3.0% in 2018, after growing approximately 1.0% in 2017. Where in that range the industry finishes will depend largely on the strength of the American economy which, in turn, will depend on the size and efficiency of the stimulus Washington delivers. A weak package will mean a finish toward the bottom of the range, and a strong package a finish toward the top. If Washington really comes through, we may have to do something we haven’t done in years: revise a forecast up. Print enters 2018 with sales of approximately $84.0 billion, 9.1% above the 2011 low, but still 14.6% below the 2007 pre-Great Recession level. Diversification continues. Participants in the Idealliance “State of the Industry, 15th Edition” report expect, on average, something other than printing (mailing, fulfillment, database management, marketing services, Web service, etc.) to provide 31.6% of their revenue in 2018, up from just 13.3% in 2012. Click Read More below for additional information.

Baldwin Technology - a world leader in providing process automation solutions, consumables and services for the print, packaging, textile and corrugated industries - has acquired QuadTech Inc., from its parent company, Quad/Graphics. With this acquisition, Baldwin adds all of QuadTech’s highly regarded technology and strategic locations across the Americas, Europe, China, Japan and India. QuadTech is a global leader in the design and manufacture of control systems that help commercial, newspaper, packaging and publication gravure printers improve their performance and productivity. Headquartered in Sussex, Wis., QuadTech maintains a worldwide network of sales and service operations, and sells automated systems in more than 100 countries. Click Read More below for additional information.

It’s hard to believe that the 2017 Printing Impressions 400 ranking of the top printers in the U.S. and Canada, as ranked by annual sales volume, marks our 34th annual list. For more than three decades, our compilation has illustrated key industry trends and chronicled the ups and downs - and, in some cases, the demise due to M&A deals - of specific companies. Like past editions, the 2017 PI 400 reveals the current state and future direction of the printing industry, as well as several hot print market segments that remain ripe for further industry consolidation. For instance, the financial performance of the publicly held printing conglomerates that fill the top spots on the PI 400 has largely been flat. RR Donnelley, Quad/Graphics, LSC Communications, Cenveo, Transcontinental and Donnelley Financial Solutions all reported sales declines for their most recently completed fiscal years in comparison to their previous campaigns. Exceptions included Cimpress (Vistaprint), an online-only, Web-to-print specialist, and Multi-Color Corp., a label printer that acquired the label division of Constantia Flexibles for $1.3 billion in October. Click Read More below for additional information.

The 2,000th Speedmaster XL 106 recently left the production line in Wiesloch-Walldorf and is now being installed at Japanese customer Toyama Sugaki. With this, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) is celebrating another milestone for this Peak Performance class press. Packaging printer Toyama Sugaki, based in Toyama in Japan with 270 employees, is taking delivery of a seven-color Speedmaster XL 106 with coating unit and extended delivery. It specializes in packaging for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Toyama Sugaki likes the short makeready times, the perfect print quality, and the high production speed of the new press. The Speedmaster XL 106-7+L with anniversary cover on the printing unit will be inaugurated with a certificate on site by Heidelberg Japan and the customer. It will be the company’s second Heidelberg press alongside a Speedmaster SX 74-4-P-H chosen by the customer for its machine fleet. The Speedmaster XL 106 has proven itself in industrial commercial and packaging printers, label printers, and web-to-print printers, which like the wide range of configuration options in the 70x100 format class. Click Read More below for additional information.

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. has announced commercial availability of its newest launched printer, the EFI™ Pro 24f. First exhibited at the recent SGIA Expo, it is the only dedicated flatbed wide-format printer featuring EFI’s proven LED and variable drop grayscale head technologies. It provides precision imaging, fine detail and outstanding image quality for a broad range of applications. Wichita, Kansas-based customer Superior Signs & Engraving is the very first user for the printer. The printer’s premium quality imaging capabilities, with white ink included, and the high versatility and productivity of EFI’s “cool cure” LED technology, have vastly improved throughput and quality at the company. Click Read More below for additional information.

Allen Press, Inc. has upgraded its scholarly journal typesetting platform to Arbortext Publishing Engine Enterprise. The Arbortext Publishing Engine is a cloud-based system that provides the ability to intelligently pull XML and unstructured data from content management systems profile content for targeted audiences and variable deliverable types and automatically generate publications. In addition to the Arbortext Publishing Engine platform, Allen Press improved its workstation-class computers by installing the latest generation hardware and high-resolution video systems. “Upgrading to the Arbortext Publishing Engine helps us accomplish our mission of efficiently producing more jobs,” said Mark Kohlhase, Senior Director of Composition and Training. “This technology will allow Allen Press to enhance our typesetting automation processes, resulting in faster delivery and reduced publishing costs.” Click Read More below for additional information.

More than 300 visitors from around the world and over 40 international trade journalists attended the Packaging Day hosted by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) at its Wiesloch-Walldorf plant at the beginning of November. The “Pushing the Future in Packaging” event showcased the latest solutions and technologies for packaging printing. The aim of these solutions is to increase the efficiency of all processes through intelligent networking and automation. This applies both to printing high-volume standard packaging as well as highly embellished folding cartons in the luxury segment. Packaging printing is the strongest growing segment in the print media industry. Annual growth rates of around three percent are expected in the coming five years, and around 20 percent for digital printing. Heidelberg announced a broad-based product campaign for this market at drupa 2016, which is now being implemented consistently – in both offset and digital technology. As key note speaker, Steffen Schnizer, Managing Director of Multi Packaging Solutions in Obersulm near Heilbronn, emphasized that demand from brand owners for exclusively finished packaging is on the increase. Nowhere is this truer than in the cosmetics and perfume industry. Purchase decisions are frequently made at the point of sale, where high-quality packaging guarantee the necessary attention. “Heidelberg not only offers its customers the widest range of products for packaging output, but is also the clear market and technological leader in this area,” emphasized company CEO Rainer Hundsdörfer at the opening of the Packaging Day. Click Read More below for additional information.

LSC Communications has signed a multi-year agreement with Bauer Media Group USA, the number one seller of magazines at retail in the country. Beginning in January 2018, LSC will print 17 of Bauer’s popular print titles including Woman’s World, First for Women, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style Weekly, Closer Weekly and J-14, among others. According to Thomas J. Quinlan III, Chairman and CEO of LSC Communications, “With Bauer as one of the most successful magazine publishers in the world, LSC is honored to have been selected for our optimal print production and mailing solutions. We look forward to continuing to support Bauer’s vision for many years.” Click Read More below for additional information.

As many as 200 workers will be out of work by the end of January when the Quad/Graphics facility in Taunton closes, according to the Wisconsin book manufacturer. Emails were sent out Wednesday to workers informing them of the bad news, said spokeswoman Claire Ho. Ho said workers will be offered either a severance package with limited continuation of medical benefits or the chance to work at another of the company’s locations, most of which are in other parts of the country. “We want to take care of them,” she said on Friday from her office in Sussex, Wisconsin. Ho said the plant at 1133 County St., located on Route 140 near the onramp for Route 24, specialized in assembling traditional reading books. Click Read More below for additional information.

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. today reported that Northampton, U.K-based graphics production company Evolution has installed an EFI™ VUTEk® GS3250LX Pro LED hybrid roll/flatbed printer. Evolution chose the 3.2-metre wide printer for its speed, quality of build, and low downtime and running costs. Previously, when its superwide-format graphics work volumes became too large, the company often outsourced to other providers. Now, Evolution can produce that work in-house with a printer that is several times faster than its old flatbed printer. Although Evolution’s machine operators are new to using the printer, they were able to get trained quickly, taking very little time to start producing high volumes of work – more than 200 2440mm x 1220mm panels a day for clients. Click Read More below for additional information.

The National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers (NAPIM) Board of Directors has announced its increased support of Two Sides North America, the non-profit organization that promotes and encourages the responsible production, use and sustainability of print and paper. NAPIM Executive Director, John Copeland and Director Regulatory Affairs and Technology, George Fuchs will be joining Two Sides’ Anti-Greenwash Task Force to ensure that the views of NAPIM members are considered in Two Sides campaign activities. Membership discussions are also underway with specific companies in the ink manufacturing sector to ensure representation within the Two Sides network of companies and governance. Click Read More below for additional information.

LSC Communications announced that it has acquired The Clark Group. Clark is a leading third-party logistics provider of distribution, consolidation, transportation management and international freight forwarding services, with a network of nine strategically located distribution centers in the US. “Continuing to expand LSC’s logistics service offering in ways that add value to our clients’ businesses has been a sharp focus for us,” said Thomas J. Quinlan III, Chairman and CEO of LSC. “The Clark Group brings a range of supply chain services to LSC that position us for growth, including the ability to better provide a full-service offering for magazine clients with newsstand distribution as well as reverse logistics solutions for our book publisher clients.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Kingery Printing, an Effingham, Ill.-based commercial printer that provides a full suite of prepress, sheetfed and web printing, binding, and distribution services, has announced the acquisition, effective December 1st, of Mattoon, Ill.-based United Graphics, a digital and offset printing company that specializes in the manufacturing of books, catalogs, guides and newsletters. Graphic Arts Advisors (GAA), Mountain Lakes, N.J., a strategic financial advisory and consulting firm devoted exclusively to all sectors of the graphic communications industry, represented Kingery Printing in the acquisition, with GAA Director John Hyde, Esq. serving as lead advisor on the purchase. Under the agreement, United Graphics and its Mattoon facility, will become part of the Kingery Printing organization, which, in addition to its Effingham headquarters and manufacturing facility, also includes a plant in Henry, Ill. John Wurtsbaugh, president of United Graphics, becomes COO of Kingery Printing, overseeing operations at all three facilities. Click Read More below for additional information.

Electronics for Imaging, Inc., announced the release of its newest-version EFI™ Fiery® XB digital front end (DFE) platform for ultra-high-speed production inkjet presses. The Fiery DFE meets highly demanding requirements for performance, color and imaging, including advanced variable-data production printing, at speeds of up to 13,000 pages per minute – or the data equivalent of 2 streaming movies each second. The groundbreaking Fiery XB platform used for the new DFE complies with native intelligent production data stream (IPDS) workflows and is certified IS/3 compliant, delivering the performance, functionality and accuracy required for high-volume transactional applications. As one of the most flexible DFEs in the production inkjet market, the Fiery XB DFE platform also consumes all variable data formats and languages, including PDF and PDF/VT. Click Read More below for additional information.

Ohio’s Office of Workforce Development received another WARN notice from Quad/Graphics. Quad/Graphics, which is based out of Sussex, Wisconsin, is a printing company. The company was founded in July of 1971. According to the company’s WARN notice, it will soon be shutting down its Columbus facility and laying off all employees at the facility. The closure and layoffs are expected to be permanent. The employment separations are expected to commence on or around December 8, 2017. In total, Quad/Graphics believes that 116 workers will be impacted by the upcoming closure. The WARN notice can be accessed here. Click Read More below for additional information.

Expanding its range of in-mould label products and presenting non-UV print shops the ability to compete in this growing segment, Flint Group today announces the global availability of Novastar® D 2000 IML BIO for metallised paper and non-absorbent substrates. According to Jürgen Riedlinger, Director Global Product Management, Sheetfed, “Over the last 5 to 6 years global production of in-mould labels has grown at around 4% per year, due in part to the ability of the technology to enhance the product visibility and brand identification in the market. And we believe in-mould labelling will continue to grow significantly as the manufacturing efficiencies and visual quality it brings gets wider endorsement. Currently in-mould accounts for less than 3% of all labelling, so there is plenty of room for it to grow.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Transcontinental Inc.'s Media Sector, TC Media, announces the sale of its weekly Courrier Laval, as well as its related web property, to 2M Média. This company is led by Mr. Martin Olivier, President, and Mr. Martin Routhier, Vice President, who are both former TC Media managers. Fourteen employees of Courrier Laval are transferred to the acquirer, along with two employees from TC Media's Production team. Furthermore, TC Transcontinental also concluded a multi-year agreement for the printing and distribution of this publication. TC Transcontinental therefore hands over the reins to 2M Média to carry on the activities of Courrier Laval, a jewel of the weekly newspaper landscape in Québec. The Corporation would like to thank all the employees who have shown dedication and professionalism over the years and wishes them the very best for the future at 2M Média. Click Read More below for additional information.

Paul Ramirez, president of Barrington Press in Paramus, New Jersey had a problem – his offset presses were offline as much as three hours a shift. The downtime, set-up and overtime costs made it difficult to keep jobs profitable. Knowing that delivering high quality printing with quick turnaround was critical to grow his business, Ramirez looked to Xerox for a solution and the answer was to go digital with the Xerox iGen® 5 Press. “If someone would have told me how much money I’d be saving each month using the Xerox iGen 5 Press, I wouldn’t have believed it,” says Ramirez. ”When we combined the excessive paper waste, overtime wages and offset press supplies, the numbers were staggering.” With its market leading uptime, substrate versatility and job automation features, the iGen 5 created a fundamental turnaround at Barrington Press. The figures tell the story. In the year Barrington Press has owned its iGen 5, the company has saved $10,000-$15,000 per month and has created new opportunities for growth. Click Read More below for additional information.

By offering a combination of trusted brands, consistent products and OEM partnerships combined with ‘Best in Class’ manufacturing, Flint Group was well positioned at IPEX to help printers extend their printing capability in respect to new substrates and targeting new market sectors. The XCURA EVO ink series featured heavily during the show. This ink series has been designed to help printers achieve maximum performance from new LED-UV presses and presses that have been retrofitted with a LED-UV curing system. Following on from IPEX Flint Group is pleased to announce that Fontain, a London based commercial printer, has agreed to Flint Group being the sole supplier of LED-UV ink for its brand new RMGT Ryobi 928P. This four-over-four perfecting press with LED-UV drying was also running live print jobs at IPEX. Click Read More below for additional information.

TC Transcontinental – RBW Graphics recently completed a suite of upgrades to a Goss M-3000 press installed at their RBW Graphics Facility in Owen Sound, ON. The project consisted of a drives and controls system upgrade, an Omni Make-Ready bundle and ink fountain rebuilds. The drives and controls upgrade involved replacing existing consoles with new OmniconTM and OmnicolorTM consoles, new Siemens PLC CPU hardware, controllers and drives. Goss technicians rebuilt the ink fountains on eight existing units and added new four and 16 channel driver boards, embedded controller boards, ink fountain balls, and single piece ink keys. Additionally, the Omni Make Ready package, a combination of hardware and software functions designed to reduce waste, helps TC Transcontinental – RBW Graphics to achieve its commitment to environmental responsibility. These upgrades ensure the long life of the Goss M-3000 while increasing productivity, improving waste reduction and reducing unscheduled press downtime. Click Read More below for additional information.

The Ricoh Commercial & Industrial Printing Business Group (CIPG), established in April, is keenly focused on getting the word out about its commitment to the production printing market. That was the key takeaway for a group of industry press and analysts who recently toured its Customer Experience Center (CEC) that is home to an array of continuous-feed inkjet, toner-based sheetfed and wide-format printers, along with several product development and testing labs, inside its Executive Briefing Center in Boulder, Colo. Ricoh defines industrial as wide-format digital printing and printing done as a part of the manufacturing process to produce finished goods such as garments, textiles, metals and architectural components. And the group’s ambitious goal isn’t merely lip service. According to Dollard, CIPG has nearly doubled its production inkjet printing direct salesforce since April; has created a Production Dealer Advisory Council to build stronger ties with its dealer network for toner-based sheetfed production and wide-format inkjet printer sales; is expanding its service and consulting business; and is fully committed to assuming a leadership role in industry advocacy, education and market advancement. Click Read More below for additional information.

Borderland Advisors CEO John Conley, a 42-year book printing industry veteran with RR Donnelley and then Xerox, describes how Amazon's same-day delivery requirements will totally disrupt today's book publishing, manufacturing, and distribution markets. The supply chain requirement will create new profit models and opportunities for innovative publishers and printers, while displacing those companies that are unable to evolve to the new industry paradigm. To view the video clip go to: http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/article/john-conley-amazon-day-delivery-slas-will-disrupt-book-printing/

Cenveo, Inc. has been awarded the 2020 Census Printing and Mailing Contract from the U.S. Census Bureau. The two-year $61 million contract is one of the largest contracts for printing and mailing ever awarded by the U.S. Government Publishing Office. "Cenveo's award of the 2020 U.S. Census is a reflection of our core capabilities and expertise, manufacturing and fulfillment," said Robert G. Burton, Sr., Cenveo's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "We are well-positioned to execute and manage all aspects of this program successfully and with the level of quality and security expected. We are honored to be a part of this program that will achieve a lasting impact to the future of our country." The contract will involve the manufacturing and fulfillment of 1.6 billion pieces, including letters, envelopes, inserts, questionnaires and postcards. The majority of the work will be performed at Cenveo's printing and binding facilities located in Southern California (Los Angeles) locations and other work performed across the United States. Click Read More below for additional information.

Net sales in the third quarter of 2017 were $329.5 million compared to $382.7 million in the same period last year, a decline of 13.9%. The Company generated net sales of $1.01 billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, compared to $1.16 billion for the same period last year, a decline of 13.1%. The sales decline for both the three and nine month periods was primarily driven by: (i) lower sales in the envelope segment, primarily due to lower direct mail demand primarily from our financial institution customers and lower demand in our wholesale and generic transactional envelope product lines primarily due to marketplace trends; (ii) lower sales volumes in the commercial print group and the publisher services group, primarily driven by lower customer demand and continued pricing pressures; and (iii) lower sales in the label segment, primarily due to the decision to exit our coating operation which was completed in the second quarter of 2016, and lower sales driven by customer demand and product mix changes. Operating loss was $0.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2017, compared to operating income of $20.2 million in the same period last year. Operating income was $22.6 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, compared to operating income of $51.9 million for the same period last year, a decline of 56.5%. The decline during the three months ended September 30, 2017 was primarily due to lower gross profit resulting from lower sales volumes and intangible asset impairments of $7.7 million driven by our current and expected future operating results for certain product lines. The declines in the nine months ended September 30, 2017 were primarily due to lower gross profit resulting from lower sales volumes, the impact of the decision to exit the coating operation, intangible asset impairments of $7.7 million driven by our current and expected future operating results for certain product lines, and higher restructuring and other charges resulting from the 2017 Profitability Improvement Plan. Click Read More below for additional information.

LSC Communications announced that it has acquired the Quality Park envelope business from Cenveo. Quality Park is a leading producer of quality envelopes, mailing supplies and assorted packaging items. Jim Ellward, President of the TOPS Products division of LSC Communications, commented, “We're excited to bring the strong Quality Park brand into our stable of well respected and widely known brands such as Adams, Ampad, Cardinal, Oxford, Pendaflex and TOPS. Taking advantage of the synergies between TOPS Products and Quality Park will enable us to enhance our office solutions offering to extend deeper into new and existing relationships.”

•Group sales almost the same as previous year at €1,054 million •Operating result (EBITDA) improves from €45 million to €60 million – EBITDA margin reaches 8.2 percent in second quarter •Net result after taxes increases by €28 million – positive half-year result for the first time in ten years •Success in strategic development – high demand for digital presses, establishment of new business models, and kickoff of a transformation program to drive operational excellence. Click Read More below for additional information.

HP Inc. expanded its 3D printing portfolio with the announcement of the new HP Jet Fusion 3D 4210 Printing Solution. Designed for industrial-scale 3D manufacturing environments, the new solution significantly lowers overall operating costs while increasing production volume capabilities, raising the “break-even point” for large-scale 3D manufacturing to up to 110,000 parts1 and enabling the industry’s lowest cost-per-part (CPP) - up to 65% less than other 3D printing methods.2 Existing Jet Fusion customers can pre-order the 3D 4210 Printing Solution upgrade today, and new customers can purchase Jet Fusion systems now with the option to pre-order the 4210 system upgrade.3 HP also announced the expansion of its innovative Open Materials Platform with new partners Dressler Group and Lubrizol, as well as three new forthcoming 3D printing materials: HP 3D High Reusability PA 11 and HP 3D High Reusability PA 12 Glass Beads4, and the future availability of HP 3D High Reusability Polypropylene. The new materials, developed at HP’s innovative 3D Open Materials and Applications Labs, will broaden the uses and capabilities of HP Multi Jet Fusion technology and open a world of new high-volume applications. Click Read More below for additional information.

Allen Press, Inc. will host a community open house on Thursday, November 9, 2017 to celebrate its Digital Production Center grand opening. The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is open to the public. A Lawrence Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting ceremony will begin at 11:30 a.m. with remarks from Lawrence City Commission Representative Lisa Larsen and Chamber of Commerce Board member Phil Bradley. Afterwards, guests will have the opportunity to chat with printing, mailing and marketing experts, meet their local sales representative Paula Gibbs, tour the plant and see live demonstrations of two new state-of-the-art digital presses and a variety of high tech finishing equipment. Complimentary food and beverages will be served throughout the day. “Allen Press is a proud staple that has contributed to the Lawrence community for over 80 years,” said Allen Press CEO Randy Radosevich. “We believe it’s important to connect with local residents and the businesses we serve so they continue to be a part of what we’re up to, and with our new digital production equipment and increased creative services capabilities, what better time than now to celebrate together that for the first time we are able to serve everyone’s complete marketing needs.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Transcontinental Inc. announces the consolidation of its newspaper printing activities in Québec into three plants, and consequently the closure of Montréal-based Transcontinental Métropolitain in late January 2018. The printing activities will be mainly transferred to the Transcontinental Transmag plant in Montréal, which has state-of-the-art equipment. The regional plants of Transcontinental de la Capitale in Québec City and Transcontinental Qualimax in Gatineau will also take in volume upon transfer of activities which will take place progressively beginning in early January. This decision was made in the context of the decline in the newspaper printing market, and more specifically in connection with the upcoming end of the printing of La Presse newspaper. The plant closure will enable the Corporation to optimize its newspaper printing platform in order to stay competitive. Customers will continue to be served with quality products by TC Transcontinental Printing's network and its talented teams. Click Read More below for additional information.

Blackford Capital is excited to announce the acquisition of Kingsport Book. Kingsport Book is the second company in the book printing industry to be acquired by Printing Consolidation Company - a Blackford Capital portfolio company - which also owns Dickinson. Kingsport Book has developed a strong reputation as a high-end book finishing and fulfillment company, located in Church Hill, Tenn. In its 120,000-sq.-ft. facility, the company has developed an equipment platform that can flexibly service deluxe, trade, and soft-cover books at quantities ranging from one to a million. "The addition of Kingsport Book is in direct response to the needs of our customers. The ability to manufacture deluxe books domestically with very short-turn times, is one of the core requests we have heard from our customers base," says Aaron Day, CEO of Printing Consolidation Company (PCC) and Dickinson. Click Read More below for additional information.

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. announced the availability of a new EFI™ Fiery® digital front end (DFE) for the Xerox® iGen® 5 Press. The Xerox EX-P 5 Print Server Powered by Fiery first made its debut at PRINT 17. The new Fiery DFE supports the iGen 5 Press' new White Dry Ink capability, and is the first commercially available DFE on the new Fiery FS300 Pro platform. "We believe the new capabilities with the Fiery DFE will be a significant asset to our customers, especially as it relates to optimizing our fifth station options," said Ragni Mehta, vice president and general manager, Cut Sheet Business, Xerox. "This partnership with EFI will allow Xerox to capitalize on the ability of White Dry Ink and other specialty colors to increase the breadth of applications that can be produced on the Xerox iGen 5 Press." Click Read More below for additional information.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company announced it has taken the ParityPledge™, building on its commitment to improving the pathway for women in leadership positions. The ParityPledge asks that companies commit to interviewing at least one qualified woman candidate for every open position, vice president and above, including the C-suite and board. The ParityPledge is an initiative of Parity.org, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization focused on bringing gender equality to the highest levels of business. “I am thrilled to make this pledge on behalf of RRD to champion the advancement of women in business,” said Sheila Rutt, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at RRD. “Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is fundamental to our ability to meet the needs of our current and future clients, drive business success and promote a high-performance culture. The ParityPledge strengthens our commitment to gender parity in the RRD workforce and broader dedication to diversity and inclusion in the highest levels of corporations today.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Third quarter net sales were $935 million, down $14 million, or 1.5%, from the third quarter of 2016. Pro forma for acquisitions completed in the last four quarters, changes in foreign exchange rates, and pass-through paper sales, organic net sales decreased 6.6% from the third quarter of 2016. The decrease in organic net sales was due to lower volume and price declines in both the Print and Office Products segments. Third quarter 2017 net loss was $3 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, compared to net income of $38 million, or $1.17 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2016. The third quarter of 2017 included $19 million of interest expense primarily related to debt issued in connection with the October 1, 2016 separation from RR Donnelley & Sons Company, while no interest expense was allocated to LSC Communications in the third quarter of 2016. The effective tax rate for the third quarter of 2017 reflected the impact of non-deductible goodwill impairment charges. Click Read More below for additional information.

The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) Director Davita Vance-Cooks has announced her departure from federal service to accept a job in the private sector. By law, GPO Deputy Director Jim Bradley assumes the duties of Acting GPO Director until a replacement is appointed. Vance-Cooks was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate in 2013 to be the 27th Public Printer of the United States. Prior to confirmation, she served as Acting Public Printer for 19 months. A seasoned business executive with more than 35 years of private sector and federal management experience, she was the first woman and the first African-American to lead the agency. In 2014, legislation proposed by Vance-Cooks was signed into law modernizing the GPO’s name to the Government Publishing Office, in recognition of the agency’s successful transition to digital publishing technologies. That law also abolished the outdated title of “Public Printer,” renaming GPO’s chief executive as the agency’s Director. Click Read More below for additional information.

Summary Results: Net earnings improved during the third quarter of 2017 to $20 million, a $9 million year-over-year increase, despite a 4.8% decrease in net sales to $1.0 billion. Organic sales decreased 3.7% due to ongoing industry volume and pricing pressures after excluding pass-through paper sales (-1.2% impact) and foreign exchange (+0.1% impact), and is consistent with the Company’s previous guidance. Diluted earnings per share for the third quarter of 2017 improved to $0.38 compared to $0.22 in 2016 primarily due to lower depreciation and amortization, and cost reductions and productivity improvement activities. Third quarter 2017 Non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA decreased to $116 million compared to $122 million in 2016; however, due to ongoing productivity improvements and sustainable cost reductions, the Company was able to keep Adjusted EBITDA margin flat year-over-year at 11.5%. Net earnings improved for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, to $52 million, a $45 million increase from 2016, despite a 5.2% decrease in net sales to $3.0 billion. Organic sales decreased 3.7% due to ongoing industry volume and pricing pressures after excluding pass-through paper sales (-1.4% impact) and foreign exchange (-0.1% impact). Diluted earnings per share improved to $1.01 during the nine months ended September 30, 2017, compared to $0.15 in 2016. Year-to-date Non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA was $334 million, a 1.8% decrease from 2016, and Adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 11.2% as compared to 10.9% in 2016. Click Read More below for additional information.

Third Quarter 2017 Highlights: Net sales in the quarter were $1.73 billion, up $9.3 million or 0.5% from the third quarter of 2016. On an organic basis, consolidated net sales decreased 0.4% driven by volume growth in the International and Strategic Services segments and favorable changes in fuel surcharges which were more than offset by net volume declines in the Variable Print segment, lower postage pass through sales in the Strategic Services segment and modest price erosion across all segments. Gross profit in the third quarter of 2017 was $324.4 million or 18.7% of net sales versus $364.2 million or 21.1% of net sales in the prior year quarter. The positive impact from our cost reduction initiatives was more than offset by an OPEB curtailment gain in the prior year period and unfavorable mix, modest price pressure, start-up costs related to a new facility in Asia and higher costs of transportation as a result of the hurricanes in the current period. Click Read More below for additional information.

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. and Xeikon announced they have entered into an exclusive partnership for the EFI™ Jetrion® digital label and narrow web inkjet printing systems. Under the partnership, Xeikon will service, support and supply the worldwide Jetrion customer base, and continue the direct sales of Jetrion digital label printing systems as part of the Xeikon portfolio of digital dry toner and UV inkjet presses for the self-adhesive label market. "EFI Jetrion printing systems have helped to establish the market for industrial digital inkjet label production, and the numerous innovations developed for high-resolution Jetrion technology — including high-end, production-class LED imaging, superior opaque white ink and true all-in-one integrated print, varnish, cut and slit systems — have given EFI Jetrion the largest installed base of UV inkjet label presses in the world," said Guy Gecht, EFI CEO. "As we expand our portfolio of industrial inkjet products, we prioritized our go to market investment and resources. It was a clear choice for us to pick Xeikon, one of the undisputed leaders in digital label printing, as the ideal partner to continue a trustworthy sales and service operation for the Jetrion product line." Click Read More below for additional information.

HP Inc. announced the completion of its acquisition of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.’s printer business in a deal valued at $1.05 billion. A3 represents HP’s largest growth opportunity in business printing. The combination with Samsung expands HP’s portfolio, accelerates its ability to disrupt the $55B A3 copier segment with superior multifunction printing technology, and strengthens its leading A4 laser printing business. Samsung also brings compelling intellectual property of more than 6,500 print patents and a world-class workforce of nearly 1,300 researchers and engineers with expertise in laser technology, imaging electronics and supplies and accessories. “As we ignite a renaissance in printing, we’re thrilled to bring together the industry’s best and brightest talent,” said Dion Weisler, President and CEO, HP Inc. “Together, we will build on more than 30 years of print leadership to accelerate our strategy, disrupt new market opportunities, and provide our customers and partners with unique and highly innovative print solutions. Click Read More below for additional information.

Nosco Inc., a subsidiary of Holden Industries, has announced that it has acquired Gooding Company, a New York-based insert and outsert manufacturer with over 141 years of printing experience. Through the acquisition of Gooding, Nosco will add an additional manufacturing facility on the East Coast that will help reduce lead times, lower packaging costs and provide an expanded portfolio of folded literature. Gooding was established in 1876 in Lockport, N.Y. In 1990, the company was sold to current president, Jerry Hace. Under Hace's leadership, the company began focusing on enclosures for the medical and pharmaceutical industries, in addition to other markets. Click Read More below for additional information.

Three Z recently added a Goss M-500 to expand its printing operations. The M-500 is known for its proven technology and ability to deliver high print quality, efficiency and reliability at up to 40,000 impressions per hour. Affordability, straightforward design and versatility are all hallmarks of the M500. “Given Three Z’s extensive line of Goss equipment, the M-500 was a logical step to enhance their operations with a minimal learning curve for the staff,” explains Alexander Lutton, Goss Project Manager. “The features of this equipment will help to ensure that Three Z will remain one of the top commercial printers in the US.” Click Read More below for additional information.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2017, the Company reported revenue of $724.1 million, down 0.2% year-over-year compared to $725.4 million for the same period in 2016. GAAP net income was $9.4 million or $0.20 per diluted share, compared to $25.0 million or $0.52 per diluted share for the same period in 2016. Non-GAAP net income was $74.0 million or $1.57 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $80.5 million or $1.68 per diluted share for the same period in 2016. Cash flow from operating activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, was $42.4 million, down 24% compared to $55.8 million during the same period in 2016. "We are clearly disappointed in the third quarter results, which fell below our expectations largely due to delayed deals in our direct business," said Guy Gecht, CEO of EFI. "To reaccelerate growth, we are reallocating budget and talent toward our largest opportunities, in textile and packaging, along with making organizational changes and adding senior positions to improve focus and execution." Click Read More below for additional information.

Wisconsin printing company Quad/Graphics Inc. will shut down its plant in Waseca, Minn. KSTP reports on the announcement by Quad/Graphics, which said that about 30 employees at the 365-person plant would stay on to support area clients, but the bulk of the plant's work will be shifted elsewhere in the country. Click Read More below for additional information.

Allen Press, Inc. is pleased to announce that Paula Gibbs has been promoted to Sales Executive. Gibbs joined Allen Press in February 2017 as an Account Manager. As Sales Executive, Gibbs will lead sales efforts in the eastern Kansas region, including Lawrence, Kansas City, Topeka and Manhattan. Gibbs will work closely with the Allen Press marketing and operations teams with a focus on growing digital printing, direct mail and marketing communications services. “It’s our goal to be a printing, direct mail and marketing leader in Lawrence and the surrounding areas. Paula is a natural fit to build community relationships and to help local businesses grow,” said Maria Preston-Cargill, Allen Press Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “Paula’s experience in multiple areas of the industry and her enthusiasm for printing will serve her and her customers well as she takes on this new role.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Transcontinental Inc.'s Media Sector, TC Media, announced the sale of its Sorel-Tracy-based weekly Les 2 Rives, as well as its related web property, to DBC Communications inc., a company led by its president, Mr. Benoit Chartier, also owner of the following newspapers: L'Oeil Régional, Le Clairon de Saint-Hyacinthe, La Pensée de Bagot, Gestion et Technologies Agricoles and Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe, the longest-running French-language newspaper in America. The 8 employees of this newspaper are transferred to the acquirer. The Corporation would like to thank them for their professionalism and wishes them the best for the future. Furthermore, TC Transcontinental will continue to provide printing and distribution services as it already does for the other publications of the acquirer. This transaction is part of the process for the sale of TC Media's local and regional newspapers in Québec and Ontario, which was made public in a press release issued by Transcontinental Inc. on April 18. It is the second transaction between TC Media and DBC Communications since the beginning of the year. The first transaction was DBC Communications' acquisition of the assets and activities of L'Oeil Régional in Beloeil in March. We also note that the two companies have a long-standing business relationship dating back to 1979 when TC Transcontinental had acquired the Saint-Hyacinthe printing plant from the Chartier family.

• Revenue increased 8.5% year-over-year, driven by Small Business Services which grew 2.5% and includes the results of several small tuck-in acquisitions and from growth in Financial Services of 28.0% driven by the results of FMCG Direct and Data Support Systems, which were acquired in the fourth quarter of 2016 and RDM Corporation, which was acquired in April 2017. • Revenue from marketing solutions and other services increased 30.2% year-over-year and grew to 40.2% of total revenue in the quarter. • Gross margin was 61.2% of revenue, compared to 63.8% in the third quarter of 2016. The impact of acquisitions and increased delivery and material costs this year were only partially offset by previous price increases and continued improvements in manufacturing productivity. • Selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expense increased 2.4% from last year primarily due to additional SG&A expense from acquisitions which was partially offset by continued cost reduction initiatives in all segments. SG&A as a percent of revenue was well leveraged at 40.8% in the quarter compared to 43.2% last year. Click Read More below for additional information.

“Heidelberg’s Coating Days are the most efficient way for Heidelberg to share expertise aimed at further optimizing the productivity of coating applications in conventional, UV, and LED jobs,” says Bernhard Steinel, Head of the Lifecycle Solutions Business Unit at Heidelberg, in summarizing the event’s benefit. For the seventh time in succession, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) welcomed printers and production managers from France, Germany, Benelux, Eastern Europe, Austria, and Switzerland to benefit from additional expertise in relation to coating applications. Around 120 attendees came this year to the exclusive four-day learning event, which was held from 15 to 19 September in Wiesloch-Walldorf. The event focused on the Heidelberg Saphira range of LED coatings for matt, gloss, and drip-off applications as well as a relief coating application, where comparable coating amounts are applied using screen printing. Click Read More below for additional information.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) has received awards from the German Design Council in Frankfurt for the outstanding design of its machines, as it was announced on 20 October in cooperation with the specialist journal “manager magazin”. The Award’s international jury honors design trends leading the way in the German design landscape. The Award, which was established in 2012, is one of the most respected of its kind worldwide, and is highly regarded well beyond specialist circles. The Speedmaster XL 106 offset printing press was selected as the winner for industrial applications, the new Primefire 106 digital printing press as the winner for digitized, personalized packaging, and the new Omnifire 250 as the winner for printing three-dimensional objects like balls, drinking bottles, or cell phone covers, with the Omnifire 1000 model receiving a special mention by the jury. Click Read More below for additional information.

The Minuteman Press franchise located at 3523 Eastern Avenue, Suite 4 in Davenport has been awarded the #1 ranking in the Printing and Promotions category by Locals Love Us Quad Cities. The #1 ranking was based on online votes that Locals Love Us tallied from local area residents in over 200 categories via their secure, online survey. During the voting period, Minuteman Press in Davenport used an effective cross media marketing approach to let their customers know about the online voting. Sue Grant of Minuteman Press Davenport explains, "We did an email blast to our customers at the beginning of September and a reminder again on September 25th. In addition, we visited our customers and gave them a Minuteman Press two-color 1/4 pad with voting directions on the top sheet. We also handed out orange foil wrapped chocolate coins in our store and explained the online voting process to our walk in customers as well." Click Read More below for additional information.

The Sunday 2000 has a proven reputation for delivering high quality, productivity and efficiency across a varied range of web offset applications. Innovative gapless blanket technology accelerates speed and leads to dramatic savings in both time and cost. The Sunday 2000’s exclusive combination of premium print quality and faster production on wider webs makes this press the most versatile, competitive and cost-effective press in its category. Ken Love, CEO of Master Graphics, says, “We currently successfully operate two Goss Sunday 2000 press systems as well as three Goss M1000 presses. We are very happy with the performance of those machines and with the excellent parts and service support from Goss, so as we move our business forward it made perfect sense to build on the existing partnership with Goss and invest in another Sunday 2000 press system.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Smithers Pira’s newest report – “Real production capability of pre-owned sheetfed litho presses” – analyzes the impression count of almost 450 pre-owned sheetfed litho presses under 10 years old from five different manufacturers. Averaged across all platform sizes, the report finds that Heidelberg presses are 24.1% more productive than all other manufacturers’ machines when comparing the overall impression count of all machines in all formats. In the case of the Speedmaster XL 105/106, the press is 66% more productive than all the competitive machines. Smithers Pira costing model showed 11% lower production costs per 1,000 sheets. “When we studied the data available online for the used equipment market, we started truly understanding the reality of how much more productive Heidelberg equipment is versus our competitors,” said Global Head of Marketing, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, Andy Rae. “But to have the data verified by a respected organization such as Smithers Pira, it now shows the whole industry the astounding proof of Heidelberg productivity.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG will be presenting digital printing solutions for the automotive sector at stand 372 at InPrint 2017 in Munich from 14 to 16 November. These solutions help providers from the sector to offer their customers personalized, attractive products – using digitally realized designs that are in ever greater demand given the megatrend of personalization. Using the example of a smart car, Heidelberg will be hosting live demos at InPrint showing how digitization and new printing technologies enable individual small series or individual parts to be quickly and easily realized. The items on show at the trade fair will range from custom-decorated speedometer bezels and ventilation nozzles to alloy rims. The Heidelberg Omnifire 250 4D printing system will be in operation for visitors to see. Click Read More below for additional information.

Celebrating its fourth year focusing on the original communications delivery device, International Print Day (IPD) throws open its virtual doors to the global print community on Wednesday, October 18th – and everyone is invited. Here is a chance to join a worldwide conversation without borders and share your passion for print through social media that spans all time zones and all types of print, beginning at 6 pm ET on October 17th (*11 pm GMT, 9 am AEST) and finishing 24 hours later on October 18th at 6 pm ET. There are many ways for students and artists, printers and their supply chain partners to participate. During IPD share your work, your favorite print samples and applications or simply share a moment with fellow enthusiasts using the hashtag #IPD17. Interact and network with the global print community to share your love of print. Last year, the IPD hashtag on Twitter generated an impressive 30-million timeline deliveries in just under 24 hours, so the push for 2017 is to go bigger. Click Read More below for additional information.

As package printers are well aware, the packaging segment of the printing industry is one of consistent growth. Meanwhile, many commercial printers that have either found their growth at a plateau, or even on a decline, have caught onto this trend and are looking into adding packaging services to their repertoires. According to Kevin Karstedt, CEO of Karstedt Partners, the folding carton market is a good place to start for commercial printers because it relies mostly on sheetfed offset printing. But before a printer can go ahead and start printing packaging jobs on an offset press, Karstedt says it’s important for them to assess whether their current equipment is up to the challenge. “If a commercial printer only has a four-color press, they’re going to be challenged for producing packaging, unless they can produce work that is CMYK oriented, and there are no special or corporate colors,” Karstedt says. “Some older sheetfed presses also don’t handle paperboard very well, so they’re not going to be able to produce folding cartons.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Chicago-based Darwill will be the first US company to install the Océ ProStream 1000. The company selected the ProStream to fulfill customer demand for high quality color applications on coated stock. Mark Deboer talks about how critical it is to have networking and peer education at events like thINK have helped them get up to speed on the evolving production inkjet ecosystem.

More than 19,000 people attended the 2017 SGIA Expo (New Orleans; October 10-12) last week. The show, which took over the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, featured nearly 600 exhibitors showcasing the most innovative technologies and products in the printing marketplace. “The Expo is always exciting, and not just because it’s the largest printing show in North America,” said SGIA President and CEO, Ford Bowers. “It’s where you go to see and learn about the evolution of the print industry.” The show floor bustled with attendees and exhibitors doing business, with attendees clearly ready to make purchases and add innovation to their organizations. New attendee Nathanial Kastelic, owner of 11th Loop, was here seeking information about eco-friendly textiles and processes. Click Read More below for additional information.

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. announced that Dome, a commercial print solutions provider headquartered in California, recently purchased EFI™ VUTEk® FabriVU® 340 soft signage and VUTEk 5r roll-to-roll printers. The new high-volume inkjet printers are to be installed in Dome’s newly renovated, Sacramento, Calif., facility by the end of this year. The purchase is part of a strategic re-invention of the company that also includes merging several locations into the new facility, as well as opening new company sales offices in Chicago and Southern California. The two new presses will replace three models from various manufacturers; once installed, Dome’s superwide-format inkjet graphics operation will exclusively use EFI printers. A complete solution for high-volume out-of-home graphics “We are going into uncharted waters for our company, and we don’t need a vendor, we need a partner to help us succeed.” said Dome President Misha Pavlov. “It’s a strategic move, for sure — EFI has invested in us, and us in them.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Arandell has been chosen as the recipient of 2 silver awards in this years SAPPI Printer of the Year Competition. The following catalogs: CARTER’S | Oshkosh B’Gosh Back to School 2016 and Neiman Marcus | Horchow October 2016 were selected to be award winners. Sappi’s Printer of the Year awards are regarded as the world’s most respected accolade of excellence in printed communications. Click Read More below for additional information.

Citing two new white papers from the Printing Industries of America, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) finds new technology when driven by the automation of processes like “Push to Stop” provides a direct link to enhanced productivity and maximum profitability. The two white papers, published by Dr. Ronnie H. Davis, PIA’s Chief Economist, focus on the roles that productivity and costs play in a printer’s overall profitability. Davis argues lowering manufacturing costs is the main way to boost profits. In fact, a 1% decrease in costs equates to a 34% increase in profits based on the industry-wide average of 2% profit. The reports show the wide profit gap ($13 for every $100 Job) between profit leaders in the printing industry and those with profit potential (Figure 1). This gap, Davis attributes, is a direct result of the reduction of manufacturing costs by the profit leaders through investment in new, technologically advanced equipment. According to PIA’s studies, customers who invest in new technology, “save more than two employees per million dollars in sales.” Click Read More below for additional information.

The Electronics For Imaging, Inc. exhibit at SGIA Expo shows how signage and graphics businesses can gain productivity and profitability advantages with a broad portfolio of digital production products, including the new EFI™ Pro 24f true flatbed LED printer shown for the very first time. EFI's exhibit at the New Orleans tradeshow also includes an EFI Reggiani industrial textile digital printer making its North American debut. Plus, attendees can see a complete portfolio of production inkjet printers, workflow software and EFI Fiery® digital front end (DFE) technologies that help businesses drive a stronger competitive advantage. Complete digital offerings for new growth opportunities: The EFI portfolio shown at SGIA Expo will help customers succeed in digital markets primed for continued growth. Customer Bill Stender, general manager of San Francisco-based graphics company SF Landmark, attended last year's show to learn more about opportunities with textile-printed soft signage. That visit ultimately led him to acquiring an EFI VUTEk® FabriVU® 340 soft signage printer, an EFI Fiery proServer DFE, and EFI Digital StoreFront® technology for web-to-print ordering. Click Read More below for additional detail.

The Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) Board of Directors has announced that SGIA, the home to professionals in the industrial, graphic, garment, textile, electronics, packaging and commercial printing communities, and NAPCO Media, a business-to-business media company, have entered a partnership that will offer print service providers and industry suppliers an unrivalled platform to connect. The platform — PRINT United, the next evolution of printing expositions in North America — combines the largest printing trade show in North America with the leading producer of multi-channel content for the print community. Over the last 20 years, the print and graphics industry has seen unprecedented changes and consolidation. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, printing establishments in the United States decreased from 35,016 in 2000 to 24,096 in 2015, a decline of 31.2 percent. At the same time, however, print shops have expanded their range of services. The Idealliance 2016 State of the Industry Report notes that in 2000 86.8 percent of print shop revenue came from lithographic (offset) print technology. By 2016, that number had dropped to 42.3 percent as print shop owners looked to new technologies — digital, inkjet, packaging, mailing, industrial — to increase their revenue and profit. Click Read More below for additional detail.

When you’re in the retail signage and point-of-sale promotion business, size, consistency, quality, and localized message matter. No matter where you live, whether you’re walking down the main boulevard in Miami or visiting a mall in any city, retailers demand eye-catching graphics to lure business into their stores. That’s the task of Classic Graphics, a leading printing, finishing, and fulfillment firm based in North Carolina and part of the Imagine! family of companies. Classic has been growing its business exponentially over the past decade and gaining a sterling reputation for its innovation and technical astuteness for its customer base of top national and international brands. But this Charlotte-based business is not content with its current status quo. Rather, the firm is increasing its footprint in the region and investing in its first large-format printing press to expand its capabilities and its reach among its customer base. Its Charlotte facility, set in a low-rise building amid an industrial park, will take delivery of a new KBA Rapida 164 64-inch hybrid UV press in December 2017. It will complement their fulfillment and production department which will move this fall to a newly-constructed facility in the Concord Airport Business Park. Classic also operates a second facility in Research Triangle Park (Morrisville, NC). In all, Classic’s business encompasses 385,000 sq ft of space and 350 employees. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Quad/Graphics, Inc. announced that it has extended and expanded its relationship with publisher Condé Nast under a multi-year agreement. Beginning in January 2019, Quad will produce 100% of Condé Nast’s titles, which include many of America’s most prestigious magazines. Quad currently prints Allure, Architectural Digest, Domino (a Condé Nast partnership with Domino Media Group), Golf Digest, GQ, GQ Style, Teen Vogue, Vogue, W Magazine and Wired. Under the new agreement, Quad also will produce Bon Appétit, Brides, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Condé Nast will take advantage of Quad/Graphics’ extensive mailing and distribution services, including its industry-leading co-mailing solutions that help publishers and marketers reduce postage expenses. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Salt Lake City-based AlphaGraphics has been acquired by MBE Worldwide (Mail Boxes Etc.), a global, third‐party logistics, printing and communications services franchise network based in Milan, Italy. The purchase of AlphaGraphics, from private equity firm Western Capital Resources, comes on the heels of MBE's acquisition this past April of the U.S.-based PostNet franchise system (which I wrote about here at the time). With the AlphaGraphics acquisition, MBE Worldwide now has approximately 2,600 locations in 39 countries and projected system-wide sales of $940 million in 2017. All three companies currently operate in the business services industry through a network of locations owned and operated by individual franchisees. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Blackford Capital is excited to announce Aaron Day as CEO of Dickinson and its parent company, "Printing Consolidation Company" (PCC). Dickinson is the first company within PCC, specializing in the religious book printing services industry. After acquiring Dickinson in 2015, Blackford Capital realized it would need an industry seasoned CEO to run the company and continue its acquisitions efforts. "With the addition of Aaron Day as CEO of Dickinson and PCC, we are poised to recruit industry leading talent and complete acquisitions in our core Book Printing segment," said Stephen Parker, chairman of Dickinson. "We are pursuing companies with a focus in the book industry and with Aaron's leadership background over the past 25 years, we now have the experience to accelerate our M&A growth strategy," said James Cook, Associate at Blackford Capital. Before joining the company, Day served as CEO of Trend Offset Printing, a commercial printing company, headquartered in Los Alamitos, Calif. After securing Aaron Day as CEO, Blackford Capital hired John Ruther as CFO. Ruther joins after leading The Ruther Group, an international management consulting firm based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ruther brings decades of experience leading large manufacturing companies in a financial and operational capacity. Click Read More below for more of the story.

With up to 5 million pages of direct mail each month, Pittsburgh Mailing, looked to inkjet technology to provide more speed and a full color multifaceted press that could accommodate fluctuating high volumes. The Pennsylvania-based company chose the Xerox Rialto® 900 Inkjet Press with Dynamic Perforator as it checked every box as a productive solution that could print, stack and provide inline dynamic perforation and edge trim. “Not only will the Xerox Rialto eliminate the need for mono overprint on offset shells, the new press will enable a quick transition to continuous feed inkjet products and help us compete with low-cost alternatives,” according to the president and CEO Kurt Smallhoover. Smallhoover says Pittsburgh Mailing added the production inkjet to its fleet of Xerox presses after surpassing $12 million in revenue, with monthly outputs increasing by nearly 50 percent. The high speed, small footprint and unique roll-to-cut sheet press makes the transition to inkjet affordable and is perfectly suited for the direct mail market. Click Read More below for more of the story.

CJK Group, led by CEO Chris Kurtzman, is a largely unknown, low-profile industry conglomerate that's been methodically consolidating the book manufacturing market. But the entity can no longer fly under the radar screen as it sounds another "Bang!" ... no pun intended ... with yet another major M&A transaction. The latest acquisition by Brainerd, Minn.-based Bang Printing and its holding company, CJK Group, is the assets of Webcrafters, a 270-employee, Madison, Wis., printer that caters to the educational publishing community as a manufacturer of textbooks, workbooks, teacher and student guides, and related educational support materials. Terms of the definitive agreement reached between the two privately-held companies were not disclosed. CJK Group is the holding company for Bang Printing, a manufacturer of books, catalogs, publications and fulfillment services in Brainerd, Minn., and Palmdale, Calif., which has already acquired Hess Print Solutions in Brimfield, Ohio; Sentinel Printing, St. Cloud, Minn.; Victor Graphics in Baltimore; Sinclair Printing, Los Angeles; and The Sheridan Group with production facilities in Waterbury, Vt., Hanover, N.H., Hanover, Pa., Chelsea, Mich., and a corporate office in Hunt Valley, Md. Prior to Webcrafters, CJK Group's most recent acquisition comprised the $196.5 million, 1,000-employee Sheridan Group this past April. Click Read More below for additional detail.

HP Inc. announced the new HP Latex 115 Printer, offering the most economical entry point into sign and display printing services using high-quality, water-based HP Latex technology. The HP Latex 115 model is also available in the Print and Cut series, providing an end-to-end HP solution for printing and cutting. The new 54-inch HP Latex 115 Printer delivers stunning results with high image quality across a wide range of applications for indoor and outdoor signage. HP Latex 115 Print and Cut also provides an end-to-end solution for producing applications such as labels, decals, stickers, customizable clothing, window graphics, and many more applications. The dual-device solution delivers simultaneous and continuous printing and cutting in a single, integrated workflow. HP Latex Print and Cut solutions were launched earlier this year on the HP Latex 300 series. Click Read More below for additional detail.

CBS News featured Onward Reserve, a valued Lett Direct client and The Dingley Press, a trusted partner in a segment that aired nationally this week. This informative story confirms the importance of catalogs as a major driver of traffic to the web. It’s very well done and we want to share this segment with you in case you missed it. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Phoenix Color, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ALJ Regional Holdings, announced that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire the assets of Moore-Langen Printing in Terre Haute, Ind., from LSC Communications. ALJ and Phoenix expect to finance the acquisition by amending ALJ's existing term loan with Cerberus Business Finance, selling an aggregate of $1.5 million of ALJ common stock in a private offering to two investors who are unaffiliated with ALJ, and using $1.0 million in proceeds received from the recent stock option exercise by Jess Ravich, executive chairman of ALJ. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Allen Press, Inc. is pleased to announce that Terry Leatherman has been promoted to Manager of Association Management Services. Leatherman joined Allen Press in February 2017 as an Association Manager. In his new role, Leatherman will oversee and expand the Allen Press Association Management division, which provides membership management, strategic consultation, database administration, customer service and annual meeting coordination to non-profit societies and associations. “Terry’s exemplary work with our clients and executive management experience make him a terrific fit for this position,” said Maria Preston-Cargill, Allen Press Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “He’s a great asset to our organization and the clients we represent, and we are thrilled to have him leading our team going forward.” Click Read More below for additional detail.

Transcontinental Inc.'s Media Sector, TC Media, announced the sale of its Saint-Jérôme-based weekly Journal Le Nord, as well as its related web property, to Journal Le Nord inc., a company led by Ms. Josée Pilotte, also publisher and owner of the Accès, LE journal des Pays-d'en-Haut newspaper. The 8 employees of this newspaper are transferred to the acquirer, along with 2 employees from TC Media's Production team. The Corporation would like to thank them for their professionalism and wishes them the best for the future. Furthermore, TC Transcontinental also concluded a multi-year printing and distribution agreement with the acquirer.

Quad/Graphics, Inc. announced that it has extended and expanded its relationship with Bluestem Brands, Inc., a multi-brand online retailer, under a newly signed multi-year contract valued at more than $450 million over the term. Beginning January 1, 2018, Quad/Graphics will supply paper purchasing, printing and mail/distribution services for all 13 of Bluestem Brands online retail brands. Currently, Quad/Graphics prints catalogs and provides premedia services, including prepress, digital photography and video production, for the online retailer’s Fingerhut and Gettington brands. Soon, Quad/Graphics will begin printing catalogs for 11 additional brands, all of which are under Bluestem’s Orchard portfolio. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Quad/Graphics, Inc. announced its participation at the retail industry’s foremost digital marketing conference, Shop.org, which will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on September, 25-27, 2017. The $4 billion company helps brand owners in a variety of industries, including retail, publishing and healthcare, market their products, services and content more efficiently and effectively. To do this, Quad/Graphics leverages its strong print foundation in combination with its deep expertise in workflow re-engineering and optimization, content management and personalized, multi-channel marketing. Quad/Graphics, in partnership with award-winning digital marketing agency Rise Interactive, uses consumer behavioral data to create personalized, multi-channel strategies that drive a greater return on marketing investment. This partnership is one example of the strategic alignments Quad/Graphics seeks to evolve its offerings and drive continued value across its customer base. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Allen Press, Inc. is the recipient of seven awards from Printing Impressions’ 2017 Gold Ink Awards. Printing Impressions announced the winners in Philadelphia, Pa. on September 6. The Gold Ink Awards is the industry’s most prestigious print competition with thousands of entries submitted each year from printers around the nation. Top printers submit categorical representations of their best work, which is then evaluated by a panel of expert judges. Allen Press’ submissions received two gold winners, two silver winners, one bronze winner and two pewter winners. As further recognition of its continuing commitment to serve the scholarly market, Allen Press swept the Scientific and Technical Journal category – winning awards in gold, silver, bronze and pewter. Proving regardless of size its capabilities, expertise and determination in that arena are second to none. Not only did the Allen Press winning entries surpass competitors based on print and finishing quality, technical difficulty and overall visual effect, the work also showed what is possible for other creatives in the printing industry. Click Read More below for additional detail.

The next phase of growth for digital color printing will be using inkjet to print offset-quality images on coated stocks, at reasonable costs. The target applications are direct mail, catalogs, collateral and magazines. Digital color pages continue to grow nicely: up 15% in North America in 2016. Looking at the growth in more detail, one can readily see that the page volume growth is being driven by high-speed, continuous-feed color inkjet. Pages produced on webfed presses have been increasing at ~20% per year in recent years, double the rate of growth of cut-sheet pages, resulting in half of the total volume being inkjet output. So what’s being printed on these production inkjet web presses? The common denominator is documents on uncoated stock and that don’t require high-quality images: transactional documents, direct mail letters and books. The economics of transactional printing and direct mail letter printing now favor white paper feeding a full-color inkjet web press versus preprinted forms with mono laser overprinting. And, for books, the focus is shifting from the print cost per book to the cost of books sold. Click Read More below for more of the story.

As petrochemical companies and raw material suppliers regain their footing, they are beginning to gain clarity about the impact of hurricanes Harvey and Irma on the printing industry supply chain, though there are still many unknowns. According to Flint Group, who has been in continual conversation with affected suppliers, Gulf-area and Southeastern US suppliers are in a variety of recovery stages. Some are still assessing the damage and impact to their businesses. Others have begun to restart operations but at reduced capacity, causing a supply and demand imbalance. Many have made public announcements about continued forces majeures and supply allocations. Some transportation companies are imposing fuel surcharges due to very limited availability of carriers. Suppliers tell Flint Group they will be able to offer more tangible information about the impact of the storms once conditions stabilize further. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Looking for a job with great benefits and upward mobility? Arandell will be hosting a job fair on-site Wednesday (9/20) from 1:00pm to until 6:00pm. We are looking for highly motivated individuals to join our team in several skilled and entry level positions. On-site interviews and offers that day! Open positions: Entry Level Bindery Workers (2nd and 3rd shifts) Experienced Bindery Machine Operators (2nd and 3rd shifts) Web Joggers (2nd shift) Electricians (2nd and 3rd shifts) Industrial Maintenance Mechanic (3rd shift) Premedia Artist (3rd shift) Customer Service Representative (1st shift) To expedite the process apply online at www.arandell.com/careers before attending the job fair or complete an application upon arrival. Click Read More below for additional detail.

PRINT 17’s return to Chicago was a resounding success as 20,000 people from the graphic communications industry gathered at McCormick Place for five days of education, networking and an up-close look at the latest innovations and technologies. Industry professionals from around the world came to see new products from more than 450 exhibitors. PRINT 17 highlights included the new “Distinguished Leader” speaker series, with top marketing experts sharing their unique perspectives on how technology is changing our world and exploring the integration of print and digital. In addition, more than 50 seminars and panels throughout the show demonstrated NPES’ commitment to developing a relevant learning experience based on the pressing topics that can lead to business success for PRINT 17 attendees. Click Read More below for additional detail.

News highlights: •Lightning Source names HP PageWide preferred inkjet press provider through 2024 with order of 24 new HP PageWide T240 HD color & mono digital presses, with services and supplies •Multi-million dollar deal over seven years is the largest ever for HP’s Graphics Business •HP PageWide will serve Lightning Source’s publishers’ demands for a faster, higher-quality, and more efficient printing solution. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Today at PRINT 17, HP Inc. announced the HP Indigo 12000 HD Digital Press with breakthrough high definition imaging, and new print performance technology for HP PageWide Web Presses, setting new industry benchmarks for quality, productivity and color. These solutions are yet another step by HP in leading the acceleration of the analog-to-digital graphics printing transformation. The High Definition Imaging System for the B2-sized HP Indigo 12000 HD Digital Press doubles image resolution to 1625 dpi, delivering sharper, smoother, finer print. With this high addressability print resolution, print service providers (PSPs) can surpass offset quality and open new digital possibilities in high-end commercial and photo applications. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. announced its results for the second quarter of 2017. For the quarter ended June 30, 2017, the Company reported record second quarter revenue of $247.0 million, up 1% compared to second quarter 2016 revenue of $245.7 million. GAAP net income was $2.8 million, down 47% compared to $5.2 million for the same period in 2016 or $0.06 per diluted share, down 45% compared to $0.11 per diluted share for the same period in 2016. Non-GAAP net income was $25.5 million, down 4% compared to non-GAAP net income of $26.7 million for the same period in 2016 or $0.54 per diluted share, down 4% compared to $0.56 per diluted share for the same period in 2016. Cash flow from operating activities was $24.1 million, up 5% compared to $22.9 million during the same period in 2016. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Revenues went from $467.8 million in the third quarter of 2016 to $477.7 million in the third quarter of 2017, an increase of 2.1%. This increase is attributable to the contribution from the acquisitions in the packaging division, as well as the favourable exchange rate effect and the organic growth in revenues for the Printing and Packaging Sector. Organic growth in revenues is attributable to higher volume in the packaging division and higher demand for all services to Canadian retailers, namely for flyer and in-store marketing printing services, as well as for premedia and door-to-door distribution services, notably under the terms of the expanded agreement with Lowe's Canada, partially offset by the decline in revenues from the other printing division verticals. Net earnings increased by $3.1 million, from $45.9 million in the third quarter of 2016 to $49.0 million in the third quarter of 2017. This increase is mostly attributable to the increase in operating earnings, partially offset by the increase in net financial expenses. On a per share basis, net earnings went from $0.59 to $0.64. Excluding restructuring and other costs (revenues) and impairment of assets, net of related income taxes, adjusted net earnings increased by $6.0 million, or 13.6%, from $44.1 million in the third quarter of 2016 to $50.1 million in the third quarter of 2017. On a per share basis, adjusted net earnings went from $0.57 to $0.65.

The publication printing industry in North America continues to consolidate, and LSC Communications is leading the charge. Following on the heels of its July 17 acquisition of Creel Printing, Chicago-based LSC Communications announced today that it has acquired Publishers Press, a family-owned printing and digital solutions provider based in Lebanon Junction, Ky. It brings an end to the stewardship of Publishers Press and its predecessor entities by five generations of the Simon family, whose roots go back to 1866 when Nicholas Simon purchased an interest in a new German newspaper in Louisville, Ky., which later became known as "The Printing Rooms of Nicholas Simon."

How can today’s commercial printers bridge the physical and digital worlds through innovative solutions in printing technology, workflow software and personalization? The answers will be on display at the Xerox booth at PRINT 17. “Xerox is focused on innovations that give our customers the tools they need to grow their business and succeed in the competitive graphic communications market,” said Andrew Copley, president, Graphic Communications Solutions, Xerox. “With the speed and enhanced inline finishing capabilities of the new Versant® 3100, businesses can lower costs and turn around jobs faster; with our latest ink innovations, they can save substantially by printing directly from inkjet to offset coated stocks; and with brilliant highlights of white, dry ink they can deliver exceptional marketing materials. What attendees see at PRINT 17 from Xerox sets us apart from the competition.”

InPrint USA, the Industrial Print Show, will host the first Industrial Inkjet Conference May 1-2, 2018 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. The conference will showcase how inkjet technologies are transforming the manufacturing sector and will educate attendees on the opportunities and challenges in inkjet printing for industrial applications. The inaugural InPrint USA exhibition, held last April in Orlando, connected manufacturers who use print as a key component of the manufacturing process with leading brands in the fields of industrial specialty, screen, digital, inkjet and 3D technology print solutions.

In late September 2017, the first RMGT 10 Series Press powered by LED-UV curing and featuring a full suite of RMGT makeready and print quality technology, will be installed at VISOgraphic’s 40,000-sq.-ft. facility based here. When Chicago area commercial, digital and packaging printer VISOgraphic began its search for the new 40” offset printing press that would propel them through the growth spurt they are experiencing, the RMGT 10 Series really wasn't on its radar. However, after several meetings and visits to key RMGT customers in the Midwest, the decision to move ahead with RMGT was made by the VISOgraphic management team.

Due to the unprecedented impact and devastation in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, several of Sun Chemical’s feedstock suppliers have announced a force majeure and many other raw materials suppliers are reviewing allocations. While the volatility of the supplier markets is unknown at this point, the inks and pigments markets will be affected. Sun Chemical is committed to working closely with its suppliers to assess global ramifications, develop needed contingency plans, and to notify customers of potential delays or issues.

Effective over the Labor Day Weekend, the USPS’s North Houston P&DC that services the entire Greater Houston Area has begun resuming all operations. This includes all processing operations for Marketing / Standard Mail. This processing facility serves all Post Office Delivery Units within the 3-Digit ZIP Codes of 770, 772, 773, 774, 775, 776, 777 and 778. Furthermore, all Post Office Delivery Units have resumed normal operation with the exception of a handful, whose services are being performed out of alternative delivery facilities.

Printing Impressions is excited to announce the winners of our 2017 Gold Ink Awards! The 2017 competition, which garnered nearly 800 entries, was open to all creators and producers of printed materials, and encompassed 46 categories within commercial printing, magazines, books, catalogs, digital printing and packaging. Not only did the winning pieces surpass their competitors based on print and finishing quality, technical difficulty and overall visual effect, but they also showed what is possible for other creatives in the printing industry.

Pocket Folders Fast, an Omaha, NE-based print service provider, has invested in two J Press 720S presses from FUJIFILM North America Corporation, Graphic Systems Division. Pocket Folders Fast is a division of a broader group of companies, Wright Printing and Barnhart Press. Being a commercial printer allows this group of companies to provide services to a range of clients, including the niche of pocket folders and short-run digital packaging.

J.S. McCarthy Printers and the Tardiff family announced that effective August 21, 2017, Jonathan “Jon” Tardiff has been appointed president of J.S. McCarthy Co. It has been a long journey and the company is very proud of Tardiff and all that he has accomplished and says that it is confident that he will bring the same dedication to this new role as he has to everything else he accomplished at the company.

The training programs at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) started on Sept. 1, 2017 – 99 young men and women began their training/cooperative education degrees at one of the company’s four sites in Germany. In line with the “Heidelberg goes Digital” strategic orientation, the industry leader is also increasingly focusing its training on the issue of the digital transformation. For example, the company is providing mechatronics engineers with targeted training in using the View2Connect virtual collaboration and communication platform, which facilitates completely digital assembly planning among other features. Digital workstations for trainees in various corporate departments are planned for the future.

Last week, SG360°, a print and direct marketing solutions provider headquartered in Wheeling, Ill., announced the acquisition of Data Service Solutions (DSS), an integrated print finishing company located in Bolingbrook, Ill. The deal reportedly makes this the second largest acquisition in the company’s history (the first was Lehigh Direct in 2014), and adds a fifth additional facility in the Chicago area. Printing Impressions caught up with Mary Lee Schneider, president and CEO of SG360°, to learn more about the acquisition, what it means for SG360° and the company’s plans for the future. “This is our first acquisition since we became part of a private equity team, ICV Partners, in December. SG360° is all about growth and we're excited to take our capabilities to the next level and really help our customers manage their complex communication needs,” says Schneider. Schneider, a former RR Donnelley veteran who has been president of SG360° for almost two years, says that the capabilities of DSS will strengthen SG360°’s positioning as a leading integrated direct marketing services firm, enhances the growth of SG360°'s fulfillment business, supports the firm's distribution strategy, and will be key to driving long-term, sustainable growth. Click Read More below for more of the story.

The Stevens Group, Elmhurst, Ill., a full-service print management and marketing support company, has acquired Crystal Lake, Ill.-based CL Graphics., a printing and cross-media marketing firm. CL Graphics’ operations will be integrated into The Stevens Group’s Elmhurst facility. Graphic Arts Advisors, LLC, a strategic financial advisory and consulting firm devoted exclusively to all sectors of the graphic communications industry, represented CL Graphics in the acquisition. Graphic Arts Advisors Director Mitch Evans served as lead advisor on this sale. CL Graphics’ commitment to providing the highest level of customer service aligns well with our culture, making this acquisition a very positive move for our company,” says John Brahm, president of The Stevens Group. “Our combined expertise in marketing and production will help further enrich the solutions we provide to clients. What’s more, CL Graphics’ extensive experience in direct mail will help broaden our already comprehensive mailing services.” Click Read More below for additional detail.

Transcontinental Inc.'s Media Sector, TC Media, announced the sale of its weekly Le Peuple Lotbinière, and its related web property, to MELIORMÉDIA Inc. Three employees are transferred to the purchaser. The Corporation would like to thank them for their professionalism and their dedication to the organization. Furthermore, TC Transcontinental also concluded a multi-year agreement for the printing and distribution of this publication. This transaction is part of the process for the sale of TC Media's local and regional newspapers in Quebec and Ontario, which was made public in a press release issued by Transcontinental Inc. on April 18.

Transcontinental Inc.'s Media Sector, TC Media, announced the sale of its two Drummondville-based publications, L'Express – Wednesday Edition and L'Express Week-end, as well as their related web properties, to a Canadian corporation of which Mr. Dave Beaunoyer is part of. Mr. Beaunoyer is former general manager at TC Media for this region. The 19 employees of these newspapers are transferred to the acquirer, along with 4 employees from TC Media's production team. The Corporation would like to thank them for their professionalism and wishes them continued success. Furthermore, TC Transcontinental also concluded a multi-year agreement for the printing and distribution of these publications. This transaction is part of the process for the sale of TC Media's local and regional newspapers in Quebec and Ontario, which was made public in a press release issued by Transcontinental Inc. on April 18.

For many commercial printers, the cost savings derived from inkjet technology was offset by the expense of pre-or-post coating the paper or having to purchase specialty inkjet coated paper. With the introduction of the Xerox Trivor® 2400 High Fusion Inkjet Press, all that has changed. Xerox’s new High Fusion Ink produces high-quality results direct to offset coated paper on the Trivor 2400, removing the need for intermediate coating processes, primers or added hardware. The Trivor 2400 High Fusion Inkjet Press allows print providers to expand their inkjet media range to produce cost-effective, higher-value personalized jobs such as direct mail, catalogs, magazines and color books. High Fusion Ink is specially formulated to optimize printing and drying on offset coated media including matte, silk and glass stock from 60 to 250 gsm, up to 250 feet per minute. “The speed, great color range and ability to print on regular offset coated stock with no pre- or post-treatment makes the Trivor 2400 High Fusion Inkjet Press a breakthrough innovation in production inkjet,” said David Zwang, principal consultant, Zwang & Co. While High Fusion Ink is optimized for commodity offset coated papers, it also runs on a range of uncoated media, providing cost-effective redundancy for a versatile set of print jobs. Click Read More below for additional detail.

EarthColor is excited to announce its assets are anticipated to be acquired by Mittera Group before the end of September. EarthColor is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey and operates plants in New York, New Jersey, Florida and Texas. EarthColor traces its roots to 1982 and has in excess of 450 employees. Mittera Group is a multi-platform print, marketing and media company with more than 700 professionals that provide quality printing, direct mail, design, digital and analytic solutions for clients throughout the U.S. It has been actively engaged in growing through acquisitions and organic growth for the past decade. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Chromatic Technologies Inc. (CTI) announced the introduction of Tamper Alert, a new irreversible, heat-activated ink technology to identify tamper evidence in labels and packaging for chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food, electronics and other products targeted for theft and counterfeiting. CTI’s newest technology is a breakthrough in tamper-evidence providing customers with a tight activation window where the alert transitions from colorless to full color within a range of 10° C. Traditional irreversible technologies require a transition window between 30° to 50° C. (86° F. to 122° F.). This results in weak color activation and detection at lower temperatures. The new Tamper Alert technology is available in target activation temperatures of 50° C. (122° F.), 60° C. (140° F.), 70° C. (158° F.) and 80° C. (176° F.). Click Read More below for additional detail.

Addressing the market demands for increased productivity and extended media capabilities, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, unveils the Océ VarioPrint 6000 TITAN Series of sheetfed monochrome production presses at PRINT 17. Set to be available in the Americas in 2018, the TITAN Series builds off the success of the Océ VarioPrint 6000 Series featuring a range of technology innovations designed to help further enhance productivity, quality and media versatility, while maintaining best-in-class environmental performance.1 The technology has been developed to help print service providers who operate in the commercial, publishing and transactional segments to produce high-quality black and white prints at increased speeds while using a wider selection of media weights and formats. The TITAN Series presses build on the well-established Océ VarioPrint 6000 platform, which set a new bar for monochrome digital production when it was first launched a decade ago. Its unique Gemini Instant Duplex Technology is still unmatched to this day. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Premier Minnesota trade finisher, Embossing Plus, has announced the launch of the first JETvarnish 3D Evolution (Evo) print enhancement services program in the United States. The MGI JETvarnish Evolution is the world’s first commercially available digital print enhancement press for application sizes up to 29x47”/75x120 cm (with substrate weights up to 800 GSM). Konica Minolta, MGI’s Global Partner, sold and deployed the equipment with a total solutions support package and an EngageIT Xmedia business development campaign to help create market awareness of the firm’s new business line. Embossing Plus was founded in 1987 by Leon Spencer and has since grown to provide national print campaign support programs that include the entire spectrum of post-press services. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Kappa Media, LLC, and its controlling Member Nicholas Karabots, have announced the acquisition of the remaining partnership interest of Vanguard Graphics, LLC, from Mr. Steve Rossi. As of August 31, 2017, Kappa and one of its affiliates will have full ownership of Vanguard. Kappa purchased its original ownership stake in the company in April 2016. While the acquisition will not have an immediate impact on customers, vendors, or employees, the change in ownership illustrates the commitment of Kappa to continue to invest the capital necessary to position Vanguard for additional future growth. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Transcontinental Inc.'s Media Sector, TC Media, announced today the sale of six of its publications, namely Le Journal Saint-François, Le Soleil de Châteauguay, Brossard Éclair, Le Courrier du Sud, L'information d'Affaires Rive-Sud and Le Reflet (Delson), as well as their related web properties, to Gravité Média, a group that includes Ms. Julie Voyer, former general manager at TC Media for the Montérégie region. The 55 employees of these publications are transferred to the acquirer. In addition, 9 employees from TC Media's Production and Finance teams will also pursue their careers with Gravité Média. The Corporation would like to thank the employees for their work and wishes them the best for the future. Furthermore, TC Transcontinental also concluded a multi-year agreement for the printing and distribution of these six publications. This transaction is part of the process for the sale of TC Media's local and regional newspapers in Quebec and Ontario, which was made public in a press release issued by Transcontinental Inc. on April 18.

SG360°, an industry-leading print and direct marketing solutions provider, announced the acquisition of Data Service Solutions (DSS), a leading integrated print finishing company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The combination will create greater scale and a more diversified, robust offering that serves the complex needs of SG360° customers. The deal will enhance and support the growth of SG360°'s fulfillment business, and its location in the Bolingbrook corridor supports the firm's distribution strategy. Click Read More below for additional detail.

packagePRINTING has announced that Inland, a leader in package technology headquartered in La Crosse, WI, has been recognized twice in their 31st Annual Excellence Awards. Inland received two Second Place Awards. Amongst impressive competition, Inland was awarded Second Place in the Label – Flexo (Offset) category with their AriZona Green Tea shrink sleeve label. Inland also received Second Place recognition for their New Belgium Single Foeder Felix pressure sensitive label in the Wine and Beer Labels – Flexo (Line and Text) category. Click Read More below for more of the story.

Sun Chemical has acquired Joules Angstrom U.V. Printing Inks Corp., a leading manufacturer of UV printing inks for converters in the commercial, packaging and specialty markets. By combining the complementary portfolio of products from the Pataskala, Ohio-based company with Sun Chemical’s full range of global resources, customers will benefit from the synergies between both companies. “This partnership will give both Sun Chemical and Joules Angstrom numerous opportunities to provide customers with expanded product lines and services,” said Charles Murray, President of North American Inks, Sun Chemical. “Joules Angstrom is a company built on technical excellence and customer satisfaction, and we plan to work together to provide customers with more exciting and innovative UV printing ink solutions.” Click Read More below for more of the story.

Copy Express of Lexington recently purchased the five-color RMGT 940ST-5+CC+LED-UV with coater offset press from Graphco. This is the first RMGT 940 press to be installed in the United States and the first RMGT 940 with coater to be delivered worldwide. Copy Express has seen tremendous growth in recent years, with president and owner Mark Hicks noting that he has made strategic acquisitions over the last several years to facilitate that expansion. “That’s how I grow as quickly as I want,” he notes. The combined company — which has consolidated under the Copy Express brand — is now the largest commercial printer in the area, counting most of the ad agencies, major corporations and universities among their growing client list. Click Read More below for additional detail.

LSC Communications, Inc. announced that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of CREEL Printing, a privately-owned offset and digital printing company based in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Imagine a snowflake with textured details on a postcard, a book cover with a white horse on a dark stock with vivid hues or an advertisement with white text that pops on a vinyl window cling. These types of specialty enhancements are a reality with Xerox’s new White Dry Ink for the Xerox iGen® 5 Press’ fifth print station. “This is exciting news for iGen 5 customers,” said Jim Hamilton, group director, Keypoint Intelligence InfoTrends. “This announcement opens up a whole new range of applications. Designers will love the ability to use white on colored and transparent substrates to create promotional items like brochures, business cards, greeting cards and invitations, point-of-purchase signage, direct mail postcards and letters, and book covers. The opportunities also extend to packaging applications like folding cartons.” Click Read More below for additional detail.

HP Inc. announced a historic deal with Shutterfly, the world’s leading online retailer and manufacturer of high-quality personalized products and services, adding a second phase of HP Indigo 12000 Digital Presses and naming HP as its preferred digital press provider for its core business. The announcement comes just a year after Shutterfly acquired a first phase of HP Indigo 12000 Digital Presses, making the combined order the largest deal by far for HP Indigo. Shutterfly will use its new fleet of digital presses to produce a range of high-quality, personalized products and gifts including photo books, calendars, custom stationery, cards and keepsakes. The 29-inch format HP Indigo 12000 Digital Press enables production of these products through offset matching digital color with true photo quality, high productivity, and wide versatility on an unmatched range of media including synthetic, metalized and canvas applications. The new HP Indigo presses will be installed in time to help Shutterfly manage the annual boom of photo-based gift giving for the holiday season. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Sappi North America, a leading producer and supplier of diversified paper and packaging products, today announced the 12 Gold Award winners of its annual North American Printer of the Year contest. Regarded as the world's most respected accolade of excellence in printed communications, this award recognizes superior innovation and creativity in print across 11 categories for work produced on Sappi papers. The 2017 winners were chosen as the most outstanding print submissions from nearly 1,500 entries. Lithographix, Inc., a premier offset and grand format printer, is this year's 2017 Printer of the Year award winner. Based in Hawthorne, Calif., the printer was selected for the book “The 4th Phase Field Guide”, printed for Red Bull Media House, which highlights a beautiful collection of images shot during an epic four year, 16,000 mile journey across the picturesque North Pacific region. Printed on Sappi McCoy Silk paper, the book features legendary snowboarder Travis Rice, and was later adapted into an action movie. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Corporate Press, an employee-owned commercial printer based in Lanham, Md., has entered into an agreement to acquire certain assets of McArdle Printing, of Upper Marlboro, Md., from its current owner, Bloomberg BNA. The sale includes McArdle's existing account base and some of the equipment. “We expect the transaction to close on September 30, after which Corporate Press and its subsidiary, ColorCraft, will consolidate their current 72,000-sq.-ft. Maryland and 42,000-sq.-ft. Virginia operations into McArdle’s existing 131,000-sq.-ft. facility," explains Michael Marcian, president of Corporate Press. Together, Corporate Press and Sterling, Va.-based ColorCraft of Virginia (which it acquired from the late James Mayes in 2012) comprise a total of 140 employees. Click Read More below for additional detail.

LSC Communications, the spin-off from RR Donnelley, has embarked on an acquisition campaign that appears to herald the fundamental transformation of LSC Communications less than a year after RR Donnelley split into three publicly traded companies. Arguably the more traditional of the three now separate companies, LSC Communications primarily prints magazines, catalogs, books, directories and retail inserts. Even its chosen name, LSC Communications ("LSC"), derives from The Lakeside Classics, the annual Christmas time publication and production of unique hardcover case-bound books. The first edition, published in 1903, was the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, followed in 1904 by a reprint of all the Presidential inaugural addresses from Washington to Lincoln, and in 1905 all those up to Teddy Roosevelt's. Published every year since, future topics focused on American history and first-person narratives. The books were never sold, only given to employees, customers and friends of the company. The highly collectible books were printed and bound, with simple cloth covers and gold leaf stamping, in the Lakeside Press building in Chicago, hence The Lakeside Classics. From this history-steeped tradition, LSC Communications was launched in 2016 and now begins anew to transform itself. Click Read More below for more of the story.

Cenveo Publisher Services announces a major update to Author Services, a publisher-branded e-commerce tool. Author Services enables the collection of fees integrated directly into a publisher's composition workflow. Cenveo's Author Services solution has been key to helping publishers improve the collection of fees for publication charges, Open Access, reprints/eprints and membership dues. Publishers who use Author Services report a 90% improved cash flow by eliminating common delays with fee collections. Author Services 2.0 now accommodates advanced payment processing, including discounts, coupon codes and expanded payment terms. Click Read More below for additional detail.

If you own a printing business, the questions most responsible for keeping you awake at night probably are, “How do I grow my business?” or “Where do I take it from here?” Attending PRINT 17 (Sept. 10-14) won’t necessarily give you the entire answer. But, no other event can open your eyes to as many possibilities. That’s the essence of the registration pitch being made for PRINT 17 by NPES, the printing equipment manufacturers’ trade association that now owns 100% of the PRINT and GRAPH EXPO shows. It’s a fair and reasonable proposition. Behind it lies the reality that, just as the printing industry has changed, so has its principal trade exposition. PRINT 17 has long been regarded as the primary venue for evaluating printing and graphic products and technologies. However, according to Thayer Long, president of NPES, this year’s PRINT 17 promises to grow beyond a high-energy exhibition into an entirely new experience. Click Read More below for additional detail.

The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) print procurement program is looking to expand the number of companies registered to do business with the agency to meet the growing printing/publishing needs of Federal agencies. "GPO's partnership with the private sector printing industry is cost-effective, creates thousands of jobs nationwide, and generates huge savings for the American taxpayer. Also, surveys of GPO's Federal agency customers in recent years have consistently reported high rates of Federal agency satisfaction with our print procurement program,” said GPO Director Davita Vance-Cooks. GPO’s nationwide print procurement program provides significant economic opportunities for private sector companies to expand their business by providing services to Federal agency customers on a national level. GPO’s print procurement program awarded nearly $360 million in contracts to the private sector for printing and publishing services in FY 2016. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Sheridan has acquired PubFactory, the industry-lauded online publishing platform for journals, books, and reference works, from O’Reilly Media. PubFactory will continue to be based out of Boston, MA, and will blend seamlessly into the Sheridan stable of publisher technology products and services. The PubFactory team has been developing and delivering scholarly publishing technologies since 1999. In 2010, the PubFactory platform officially launched with the deployment of several major Oxford University Press products. This was quickly followed by the International Monetary Fund’s eLibrary and De Gruyter’s journals, books, and database products launching in 2011. Notable publishers including Bloomsbury Publishing, Brill, Edward Elgar Publishing, Harvard University Press, Peter Lang, and others have since joined the growing list of PubFactory customers. PubFactory’s configurable suite of front-end and back-end capabilities allows for optimal support across content types, making it a truly content agnostic platform that is host to 1400+ journals, 400,000+ books, and numerous database and reference work products. Click Read More below for additional detail.

As indicated, net sales and the net result in the first quarter of the year under review have improved over the same quarter of the previous year. For example, sales rose compared to the previous year, reaching €495 million (same quarter of previous year: €486 million). This was attributable primarily to Western Europe and China. As anticipated, at €629 million, incoming orders were below those of the same quarter of the previous year (€804 million), which saw a particularly high level of incoming orders from the drupa trade show. The order backlog increased by over 20 percent from €497 million at the end of the financial year to €603 million as at June 30, 2017. Profitability, as expressed in EBITDA and EBIT, increased in the quarter under review compared to the previous year’s values. At €14 million, EBITDA was far better than in the same quarter of the previous year (€1 million), while EBIT amounted to €–3 million (previous year: €–16 million). Due to lower financing costs, the financial result improved to €–13 million (same quarter of previous year: €–16 million). Including income taxes, the net result after taxes of €–16 million was a significant improvement over the previous year’s figure (€–37 million). Click Read More below for additional detail.

Transcontinental Inc.'s Media Sector, TC Media, announced today the sale of three of its publications, namely L'Étoile du Lac, based in Roberval, Le Lac-St-Jean, in Alma, and Le Nouvelles Hebdo, in Dolbeau-Mistassini, as well as their related web properties, to Trium Médias Inc. The group consists of two TC Media employees, namely Ms. Marlène Claveau and Ms. Stéphanie Gagnon, as well as Mr. Daniel St-Pierre. The 23 employees of these publications will pursue their careers with Trium Médias Inc. The Corporation would like to thank them for their professionalism and wishes them the best for the future. Furthermore, TC Transcontinental also concluded a multi-year agreement for the printing and distribution of these three publications. This transaction is part of the process for the sale of TC Media's local and regional newspapers in Quebec and Ontario, which was made public in a press release issued by Transcontinental Inc. on April 18.

It goes without saying that innovation has helped to propel Quad/Graphics, headquartered in Sussex, Wis., to the No. 2 spot on the Printing Impressions 400 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian printing companies. Quad’s dedication to technical innovation is second to none. In its unique approach to providing workplace health care, the company leads not only its own industry, but offers a model for the U.S. manufacturing sector as a whole. This is the legacy of QuadMed, first envisioned by Quad/Graphics founder Harry V. Quadracci in 1990. A year later, he opened the first of what is today a network of 100 on-site clinics in 22 states serving more than 350,000 employees and family members — everyone who works for Quad/Graphics, as well as employees of companies including General Mills, Dow Chemical, Huntington Ingalls and Miller Coors. Joel Quadracci, the current chairman, president and CEO of Quad/Graphics, explains that QuadMed is a self-insured health care program that situates primary care, preventative care and occupational health and wellness services in the workplace, where employees can access them most readily. In the clinics, doctors and other health care professionals spend ample time getting to know their patients and giving them the resources they need to take better care of themselves. Click Read More below for more of the story.

To keep up with rising volumes of policy and billing statements, insurance provider and in-plant printer, Pekin Insurance, needed an inkjet device that brought speed, reliability and advanced color technology. They also needed a technology partner to support and help expand their applications. Pekin turned to Xerox and the Xerox Brenva HD Production Inkjet Press, which they added to their production family in December 2016. “Since we strictly focus on cut sheet, the Brenva HD made perfect sense for our environment,” said Heidi Hutchison, operations manager for the Illinois-based insurance company. “But, beyond that, we were looking for a modern device that would be able to adapt as our company’s needs change – the Brenva HD was the answer to that as well.” Click Read More below for additional detail.

Print 17 announced the 2017 Must See ‘Ems – the exhibits on the show floor that attendees simply can’t miss. The 44 Must See ‘Ems winners named below will be highlighted at Print 17, occurring Sept. 10-14 at McCormick Place South in Chicago, IL. Chosen by a panel of industry experts, these technologies represent compelling advances in 11 categories spanning the print production workflow.

Second quarter net sales were $848 million, down $58 million, or 6.4%, from the second quarter of 2016. After adjusting for the December 2, 2016 acquisition of Continuum and the March 1, 2017 acquisition of Hudson Yards, changes in foreign exchange rates, and pass-through paper sales, organic net sales decreased 6.8% from the second quarter of 2016. The decrease in organic net sales was due to lower volume and price declines in both the Print and Office Products segments.

Net sales in the second quarter of 2017 were $355.0 million compared to $410.1 million in the same period last year, a decline of 13.4%. The Company generated net sales of $736.9 million for the six months ended July 1, 2017, compared to $850.6 million for the same period last year, a decline of 13.4%. The sales decline was primarily driven by: (i) lower sales in the envelope segment, primarily due to lower demand in office product and wholesale envelope product lines primarily due to marketplace trends and lower direct mail demand primarily from our financial institution customers; (ii) lower sales volumes in the commercial print group and the publisher services group, primarily driven by lower customer demand and continued pricing pressures; and (iii) lower sales in the label segment, primarily due to the decision to exit our coating operation which was completed in the second quarter of 2016, and lower sales driven by product mix changes.

Net earnings improved during the second quarter of 2017 to $7 million, a $15 million increase, versus an $8 million net loss in 2016, despite a 6.7% decrease in net sales to $963 million. Organic sales decreased 4.8% due to ongoing industry volume and pricing pressures after excluding pass-through paper sales (-1.7% impact) and foreign exchange (-0.2% impact). The organic sales decrease is consistent with the Company’s previous guidance. Diluted earnings per share improved to $0.13 compared to a $0.16 loss in 2016 primarily due to lower depreciation and amortization, and cost reductions and productivity improvement activities. Second quarter 2017 Non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA decreased $1 million to $97 million compared to $98 million in 2016; however, Adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 10.0% from 9.5% in 2016. Non-GAAP Adjusted Diluted Earnings per Share improved by $0.21 during the second quarter 2017 to $0.24. The improvement in Adjusted EBITDA margin and Adjusted Diluted Earnings per Share was primarily due to cost reductions and productivity improvement activities. Click Read More below for additional details.

Net sales in the quarter were $1.65 billion, up $13.4 million or 0.8% from the second quarter of 2016. On an organic basis, consolidated net sales declined 0.8% driven by volume growth in the International and Strategic Services segments and favorable changes in fuel surcharges which were more than offset by lower postage pass through sales in the Strategic Services segment, net volume declines in the Variable Print segment and modest price erosion across all segments. Gross profit in the second quarter of 2017 was $303.1 million or 18.4% of net sales versus $316.4 million or 19.4% of net sales in the prior year quarter. The decline was primarily due to unfavorable mix in several businesses, modest price pressure in all segments and unfavorable changes in foreign exchange rates. Click Read More below for additional details.

LSC Communications announced that it has acquired Fairrington Transportation, an industry leading full-service mailing and logistics provider. Fairrington’s capabilities include a complete range of logistics services from freight management to postal optimization solutions. Founder and CEO of Fairrington, Victor Warren said, “Fairrington has been providing delivery solutions that meet our clients’ needs for 36 years. We are excited that joining forces with LSC will give us the scale necessary to expand our service offerings.” Thomas J. Quinlan III, Chairman and CEO of LSC, further commented, “Fairrington’s experienced leadership, combined with the fact that publications such as magazines and catalogs are at the core of many of our clients’ businesses make this acquisition a natural fit for LSC. Our strategic focus is to continue to expand LSC’s logistics service offering in ways that add value to our clients’ traditional print supply chains, and beyond.”

Cenveo, Inc. announced that it is transferring its stock exchange listing to the Nasdaq Global Market from The New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE"), effective August 7, 2017 after market close. Cenveo shares will begin trading as a Nasdaq-listed security on August 8, 2017, and will continue to trade under the symbol CVO. Robert G. Burton, Sr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer stated: "We are pleased to partner with Nasdaq as the new home for our stock listing. We believe Nasdaq's reputation as the leading exchange for companies launching technology solutions is consistent with Cenveo's leadership in developing product offerings such as Kadena 2.0, a cloud-based platform focused on the performance of print and mail communications, fulfillment and supply chain management for mid to large sized enterprises. Nasdaq's increased share of our stock's trading volume also makes them an ideal trading platform for our company. Additionally, the move will provide Cenveo access to a broad portfolio of tools and services to reach our investors in a cost effective manner all of which will contribute to our profitability improvement plan we announced earlier this year. We thank the NYSE for all their support during the past several years."

Under a new multi-year, multi-million-dollar contract with National Geographic Partners, Quad/Graphics, Inc. will manage comprehensive production services, including paper procurement and management, prepress and printing management. The agreement also expands and extends the print volume Quad/Graphics supplies under contract for the publisher and its titles National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, National Geographic History, National Geographic Kids, National Geographic Little Kids, National Geographic Adventures and National Geographic Expeditions. The newly extended and expanded contract fortifies Quad/Graphics’ long-standing relationship with National Geographic Partners, which also includes books, and demonstrates the iconic brand’s confidence in Quad/Graphics as a strategic business partner. Click Read More below for additional details.

The Dayton city commission on Wednesday approved a $1 million development agreement with Taylor Communications — formerly Standard Register Co. — to help fund the renovation of the underutilized downtown building at 111 W. First St., the company’s new home come October. As part of the previously discussed deal, Taylor Communications will move roughly 400 to 500 of its local 700 workers to the 111 building, where they will occupy eight floors. The remaining employees will stay on at Taylor’s current location at 600 Albany St. in Dayton’s west side. According to Dayton Business Journal, the $1 million agreement includes $500,000 from the Montgomery County Economic Development/Government Equity program. Another $500,000 will come from the city of Dayton, and Taylor Communications will spend at least $2.4 million on facility improvements, equipment and other items. Click Read More below for more of the story.

Second Quarter 2017 Highlights • Revenue increased 7.7% year-over-year, driven by Small Business Services which grew 5.1% and includes the results of several small tuck-in acquisitions and from growth in Financial Services of 18.9% driven by the results of FMCG Direct and Data Support Systems, which were acquired in the fourth quarter of 2016 and RDM Corporation, which was acquired in April 2017. • Revenue from marketing solutions and other services increased 26.3% year-over-year and grew to 38.2% of total revenue in the quarter. • Gross margin was 63.1% of revenue, compared to 64.5% in the second quarter of 2016. The impact of acquisitions, increased delivery and material costs this year, and a favorable adjustment from an environmental reserve in 2016, were only partially offset by previous price increases and continued improvements in manufacturing productivity. Click Read More below for additional details.

Flint Group's security stand brought together, for the first time, the diverse portfolio of security products that exist in the company, to showcase their strong positions in currency, plates and digital printing. As the leading supplier of photopolymer printing plates, Flint Group Flexographic Products provides plates for direct and indirect letterpress printing, stencil plates, intaglio master plates and plates for coating applications. Billions of banknotes and tax stamps are printed using Flint Group nyloprint® plates, with a resolution of 10,000 dpi for highest precision of micro text and guilloche patterns. As a leading supplier of digital printing presses, Xeikon, Flint Group’s digital solution division have supplied the machinery and digital workflow for the first fully digitally printed tax stamp. The design is fully in line with the resolution (1200 dpi) of the digital press. Xeikon’s digital printing solutions offer specific security features such as variable numbers and images, microtext, guilloches and barcodes, hidden images, digital intaglio, track & trace and the Xeikon clear toners containing taggants and UV fluorescence. Click Read More below for more of the story.

Walker Printing LLC of Red Bluff, Calif., recently upgraded its prepress department to improve their ecological impact with a new Suprasetter A75 Gen III CtP and Saphira ND 100 plates from Heidelberg. In an effort to make Walker Printing greener, the company switched from an older, less efficient CtP device. Using the lowest heat output and energy usage in its class, the Suprasetter A75 makes a huge impact on Walker’s energy output. Additionally, the Suprasetter A75 only requires the pressroom to be below 86° F, so it does not need extra cooling to run. Click Read More below for additional details.

Classic Graphics, an Imagine! company, is pleased to announce plans to expand press, finishing, and fulfillment capabilities at their Charlotte, North Carolina facility. The expansion will include press and finishing equipment additions, enhanced design services, and increased fulfillment capacity, offering a complete in-market solution, production, and distribution footprint for the Southeast region. A new seven-color, 64" KBA Rapida 164 hybrid printing press has been acquired for Classic's pressroom. This large-format lithographic press will support a growing UV business with increased production speeds, fast makereadies, and precise in-line quality control. The facility expansion includes a full range of large-format finishing and kitting capabilities and triples the size of Classic's current fulfillment center, increasing secure storage options and boosting digital Print-on-Demand capabilities. Click Read More below for additional details.

After three years of hard fought legislative sessions, the Great Lakes Graphics Association is pleased to announce that the Illinois Graphic Arts sales tax exemption has finally been restored. Because of GLGA’s efforts in Springfield, the Graphic Arts sales tax exemption became part of the Illinois Manufacturing Machinery and Equipment exemption. The amendment was part of the Illinois state budget bill, which was approved on July 6, 2017, by a state Senate vote overriding a veto by the Illinois governor. The law now establishes a permanent sales tax exemption for graphic arts and printing equipment, which at a minimum is equal to $6,254 for every $100,000 spent on covered equipment. Graphic arts equipment is defined in Illinois as “graphic arts machinery and equipment, including repair and replacement parts, … and includes chemicals acting as catalysts [that] effect a direct and immediate change upon a graphic arts product.” The exemption was effective July 1, 2017. Click Read More below for more of the story.

LSC Communications, Inc. (NYSE: LKSD), a leader in print and digital media solutions, announced today an equity investment and the signing of a definitive reseller agreement with Authors, Inc., an Austin, Texas based developer of machine learning and artificial intelligence applications for the Publishing Industry. With the goal of helping to increase publisher revenues, LSC will harness Authors, Inc. technology to offer new services for publishers, including intelligent editorial analysis, automated keyword enhancement and actionable insights. Machine learning and AI help make titles discoverable by recommending keywords, re-calibrating metadata dynamically based on quarterly performance, and assessing content to help predict the next bestseller. “In our continued journey to invest in new technologies, we are thrilled to be making an investment in Authors, Inc.” said Thomas J. Quinlan III, Chairman and CEO of LSC. “Machine learning and AI are positively impacting many industries and we are excited about the new products and solutions we are bringing to publishers.” Click Read More below for additional detail.

Heidelberg USA announced that Quad/Graphics, a global marketing services provider, has recently invested in four new Heidelberg Speedmaster presses to support its commercial, packaging and in-store platforms. The investment reflects Quad/Graphics’ long-standing commitment to using leading-edge technology to help brand owners market their products, services and content more efficiently and effectively through print in combination with other media channels.

While visiting EastPack, Frank is unsurprisingly drawn to a booth called "The Museum of Interesting Things" and talks to Denny Daniel who shows him some of the cool things in their collection.

In a year of bold moves for DOME, this is the next great addition! DOME is welcoming two HP Indigo 12000 presses. The 29″ HP Indigo 12000 digital press produces the widest commercial application range with superior print quality, high productivity, and wide versatility. The HP Indigo 12000 is capable of 3,450 4/0 20”x29” sheets per hour of 50# text up to 18 pt.

Overcome with an increasing influx of work, Matrix Imaging Solutions was in search of a solution that could help them handle the mounting demands of customers all while keeping costs down. The print provider turned to inkjet for the technology and to Xerox for the right inkjet solution. After a thorough search, Matrix added a Xerox Brenva HD Production Inkjet Press to their production family.

In this article, Sean Smyth – Print Consultant with Smithers Pira examines the results of a new report that looks at the growth of Digital Print for Packaging to 2022. This report breaks down the projected growth by packaging application, and shows some surprising results.

In a blockbuster deal announced today within the publication and commercial printing sectors, Chicago-based LSC Communications has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Creel Printing, a privately-owned offset and digital printing company headquartered in Las Vegas. Creel’s capabilities include full-color heatset and coldset web and sheetfed offset printing, regionally distributed variable digital production, wide-format printing and integrated digital solutions.

Over 120 attendees from all over the world came to the Security Day hosted by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) for the first time in Wiesloch in mid-July. Using identification document printing (ID printing) and meaningful examples from the plastic card industry, the company showed that it has been the reliable partner for these applications for many years.

The pharmaceutical and healthcare market is increasingly moving towards specialized medicinal products. As a result, the packaging runs for these specially developed medicines are becoming ever shorter, along with the delivery times. August Faller GmbH & Co. KG, Waldkirch, Germany, has decided to counter this trend by placing an advance order for the Primefire 106 digital printing system from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) in order to obtain one of the first machines worldwide in 2018.

PRINT 17, the largest gathering of the printing, publishing, in-plant, graphic communications and mailing/fulfillment communities in the Americas, is back in Chicago with new opportunities to grow the industry. PRINT is owned and produced by NPES - The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies and takes place September 10-14, 2017. PRINT 17 will feature new, innovative education session formats this year that foster knowledge exchanges and allow attendees to design their own “Learning Experience.” More than 50 education sessions will shed light on topics ranging from design/creative process, packaging, marketing, growth strategies and emerging technologies. These education programs analyze new methods to increase ROI through education seminars and hands-on labs, pre-show OUTLOOK 17 conference, panel discussions, “Distinguished Leader” speakers, and The Learning Experience Theater presentations on the show floor. Click Read More below for additional detail.

High quality, fast speeds, small footprint and crisp color are critical production press components to direct marketing and business print provider Compu-mail. When they wanted to replace aging technology to drive new business efficiencies and expand their direct mail production capabilities, they turned to inkjet technology and purchased two Xerox Rialto 900 Inkjet Presses. “Our Rialto 900 presses allow us to produce full color variable printing at a great quality level and price – ultimately helping our shop be more efficient and drive down costs,” said Michael Vitch, President and CEO, Compu-mail. “These presses also help us further advance to the forefront of variable print technology.” Headquartered in Grand Island, N.Y., Compu-mail brings direct marketing campaigns to life through comprehensive print, mail and web-based pieces. Click Read More below for additional detail.

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul have long held a rich tradition of being the home to many well-known names in the printing industry. But among the leading printers in this crowded market space, one has decided to set seismic goals amid the competitive field in an effort to reap benefits for both its prized customers and its own 200 employee internal team. Bolger Vision Beyond Print, a commercial printer and customized technology solutions company led by CEO dik Bolger, has long needed a sister press to accompany its KBA Rapida 105 10-color long perfector press to provide its sales force with additional capacity for its growing sales volume. Later this summer, the pressroom will be accommodating that need with the installation of a new KBA Rapida 105 six-color press with UV and full automation. “The new KBA Rapida 105 six-color press will become our key workhorse,” says Bolger. “Our clients love our existing KBA 10-color perfector but we’re selling out of hours on the press. Not only will the new press give us extra capacity but it will also help us expand our luxury and education markets, as well as custom packaging. Now that we’re moving into our busy season in late summer, we’re depending on the new Rapida 105 six-color with all of its automation to cut our makeready times in half and double our run speed, which will have a multi-million dollar impact to our top line sales.” Click Read More below for additional detail.

Lux Global Label Company, one of the world's most respected printing packaging companies, today announced a series of leadership additions including naming Todd Kennedy as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. The company also announced that two labeling and printing industry veterans, Robert (Bob) Coleman and John Wurzburger, have been named to the company's Board of Directors. Lux Global Label is the newly formed holding company that purchased certain assets from National Label, a 103-year-old global leader in the labeling industry. The establishment of Lux Global Label was announced by Resilience Capital Partners, a leading private equity firm, on April 28, 2017. Click Read More below for additional detail.

The C.J. Group of Companies is proud to announce the addition of Clixx, one of the top mailing facilities in Canada, to its roster of 30 companies. “This acquisition is a great fit for our ever-expanding group of companies,” says Jay Mandarino, president and CEO of the C.J. Group of Companies (CJG). “There is a lot of synergy between our two organizations. Quality and workmanship with exceptional service are paramount at both CJG and Clixx.” The acquisition adds a host of quality equipment and services to the group’s existing resources, increasing C.J.’s production capabilities and boosting its overall versatility. Clixx offers a full line of direct mail services such as digital variable data printing and binding, in-house data and postal technology, pick and pack, kitting and fulfillment, inserting, tipping, and many other customized services. “With direct mail increasing each year this will be a great addition and was the last missing link to having all solutions under one roof to better serve our clients,” notes Mandarino. Click Read More below for additional detail.

LSC Communications, Inc. announced the release of the company’s IntercepTag solution delivering a platform for verifying textbook authenticity through the scanning of secure unique identifier codes. The platform leverages the scale of LSC's production and distribution facilities and HP’s Link Technology for product authentication, to help protect intellectual property and fight counterfeiting throughout the entire supply chain. "In the book publishing industry, textbook piracy has been a major problem and an increasing concern for publishers,” said David McCree, president of the Book division of LSC. “Our latest investment with HP builds on our strategic investment with Context Labs and strengthens our Supply Chain as a Service (SCaaS) offering. We are committed to help protect our clients’ intellectual property and to support technology innovation within the supply chain." Click Read More below for additional detail.

The downsizing of the newspaper printing and publishing industry continues. Cox Media Group Ohio, based in Dayton, Ohio, announced yesterday plans to close its newspaper printing facility located at 5000 Commerce Center Drive in nearby Franklin, Ohio, resulting in the layoffs of approximately 75 full-time and 60 part-time workers employed there. Located in Warren County along the Great Miami River and named, ironically, after Benjamin Franklin, Franklin, Ohio, has a population of nearly 12,000 residents. The three daily publications currently printed there — The Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-Sun and Journal-News — and some weekly publications will instead be printed at Gannett’s Indianapolis newspaper printing plant, following an outsourcing agreement that has been reached between Cox Media Group and Gannett Publishing Services. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Quantum Group, a trusted expert in commercial and digital printing, direct mail, and fulfillment, continues to expand its print technology leadership through its investment in an HP PageWide Web Press T240 HD. This latest technology offers a digital print engine that delivers unprecedented versatility and color-consistency combined with the agility to deliver personalized communications cost-effectively. With the ability to print 4/4 images at 500 feet per minute the production capabilities of this new printer are vast. “Today’s commercial print providers require a combination of offset-class print quality, productivity, and media versatility, along with the unique capabilities and efficiency of digital printing,” says Avi Basu, Americas director of marketing, HP Graphics Solutions Business. “Quantum’s investment will enable their clients to experience the benefits of digital printing, whether they are printing hundreds or hundreds of thousands, using Quantum’s multiple HP platforms from sheetfed Indigo to HP PageWide Web presses.” Click Read More below for additional detail.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company announced a new agreement with Vizient™, the nation’s largest member-owned healthcare company. Effective July 2017, the new three-year agreement will enable Vizient member hospitals to take advantage of RRD’s extensive end-to-end communications offerings for forms, commercial and promotional print initiatives. Vizient first engaged with the company in a March 2017 agreement for RRD’s United Ad Label, providing its members with access to more than 4,000 stock designs and endless custom options for labels and wristbands used by healthcare organizations. RRD’s deep expertise in the healthcare industry, combined with its proven ability to create, produce and distribute effective marketing and business communications materials, ultimately led to the additional agreement. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Shutterfly, Inc. announced the appointment of Scott Arnold as president, Shutterfly Enterprise, overseeing the organization's Enterprise division. This new role provides dedicated executive leadership to a key area of strategic focus for Shutterfly. In this role, Scott will be responsible for developing the company's long-term Enterprise strategy to leverage its world-class digital manufacturing platform. This division comprises the industry-leading Shutterfly Business Solutions (SBS), which manages marketing and customer communications programs for some of the world's leading brands, leveraging Shutterfly's unique personalized manufacturing capabilities. Over time, Shutterfly Enterprise expects to continue to expand the SBS business, while building additional businesses that serve a broader set of customers and industries. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Nashua’s namesake company, Nashua Corp., owned by graphics giant Cenveo, will shutter its Merrimack location by April 30 of next year, resulting in 53 layoffs and marking the end of a manufacturing legacy in New Hampshire that goes back more than a century. The company notified the state and the town by letter on Oct. 26 that the Merrimack packing facility at 59A Daniel Webster Highway is ramping down and will be permanently closed by next spring.