Komori Corporation has signed an agreement to acquire MBO-Group in a bid to further expand its presence in the digital post-press market. The deal is the second attempted purchase of MBO in the past 18 months. Earlier, Heidelberg had inked a deal to acquire the company in October 2018, but the German Federal Cartel Office blocked the transaction on the grounds it would have given Heidelberg a dominant market position.
The acquisition of the MBO-Group allows Komori to market the whole process chain from printing to post processing as well as IoT-based cloud solutions such as KP-Connect in the future. Moreover the market entry into post press solutions should be simplified with this acquisition – a new business sector for the Komori-Group.
Komori said MBO’s operations do not overlap with its own and that through the acquisition it expects to be able to market unique products that will support its PESP business. The deal is scheduled to complete on 1 April 2020 at the earliest, meaning its impact on Komori’s consolidated operating results for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2020 is negligible.
Since its establishment in 1923 the Komori-Group produces and distributes in particular high-quality offset printing machines. Since 2009, Komori has an increased focus on the development of the so-called Print-Engineering-Service-Provider-Business (PESP). For this purpose, the marketing of cutting machinery, punching machines, pile turners and other processing units for the package printing was driven forward. The focus is on the diversification of the product portfolio.
The MBO-Group, located in Germany, was founded in 1965. The MBO-Group is a worldwide operating company with its registered office in Germany which specialized in the development, the production and the marketing of machines and automation solutions for the post processing of digital and offset printing, as well as of mailing, pharmaceutical and special applications with its brand Herzog+Heymann. With the market launch of the “CoBo-Stack” in 2019 MBO offers the worldwide first collaborating robot for the stacking of folded products. This is another step towards the transformation into a provider for automation solutions in the post press sector.
Recording sales of €51.7 million in 2018, MBO runs plants in two locations in Germany, the MBO plant at Oppenweiler and the Herzog + Heymann facility in Bielefeld, as well as another MBO factory in Portugal. It also operates local subsidiaries in the US, France and China and collaborates with a raft of sales partners in countries around the globe.
