Last week, it was reported for the first time that Landa Digital Printing had experienced cumulative loss of approximately $1.8B. Gillon Beck — a partner representing FIMI, the private equity firm that was seeking to acquire Landa — revealed the company's losses for the first time, noting that FIMI had developed a recovery plan for the company. As of last week, the acquisition was pending court approval, with a hearing set for last Thursday. On Saturday (Sept. 6) evening, the Central District Court approved the $80M FIMI acquisition, according to CTech. FIMI will own 100% of Landa and notes that it will continue to employ "most of its workforce." CTech further reported that Judge Hana Kitsis noted the arrangement “ensures the company’s continued operations and safeguards the employment of most of its employees.” It wrote: She emphasized that liquidation would likely yield only minimal proceeds, given that the company’s customers are primarily overseas and its only assets in Israel are machinery. 'Approval of the debt arrangement will allow many employees to retain their jobs and source of income while preserving their full rights. On the surface, it appears that any gains from a liquidation alternative would be minimal,' the judge said

Capacity issues at the two largest printing companies are among the factors creating havoc for authors and publishers. This spring, when the pandemic forced bookstores across the country to close and authors to cancel their tours, many editors and publishers made a gamble. They postponed the publication of dozens of titles, betting that things would be back to normal by the fall. Now, with September approaching, things are far from normal. Books that were bumped from spring and early summer are landing all at once, colliding with long-planned fall releases and making this one of the most crowded fall publishing seasons ever. And now publishers are confronting a new hurdle: how to print all those books. read more at: https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/books/printing-companies-backlog-book-publishing.amp.html

With a significant increase in its business due to market leading quality and customer service, Fort Dearborn, a custom label and packaging company with twenty locations nationwide, reached nearly 82 million impressions on its Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106-8+L in 2020. This high level of productivity was especially critical to Fort Dearborn’s success as demand at grocery stores due to COVID-19 surged. Printing primarily cut and stack labels, the Fort Worth location of Fort Dearborn is equipped with two Speedmaster XL 105s and one other XL 106 in addition to its world-record press, which was installed in July of 2019. In comparison to similar machines in the market, the XL 106 at Fort Dearborn produced more than 2.5x the number of annual gross impressions than the industry average of 32 million. Fort Dearborn credits its record-breaking performance to the overwhelmingly advanced technology of the press, its increased business in 2020, and its overall plant strategy and teamwork mentality.