3 KBA Presses For Liverpool Magazine Gravure Plant

The British Isles are not to be outdone by the current strong investment in rotogravure technology on the European mainland, as Arvato continues to expands its European print network.

The British Isles are not to be outdone by the current strong investment in rotogravure technology on the European mainland, as Arvato, an international media group with headquarters in Gutersloh (Germany) continues to expands its European print network.

A new gravure print centre is now to be built in Liverpool and Arvato is placing its trust in the gravure know-how of Koenig and Bauer (KBA) for publication rotogravure presses of the XXL class.

The contracts that have just been signed provide for a total of four gravure press lines, three of those with the new web width of 4.32 metres and one for 2.75 metre webs.

The deal is the biggest-ever single gravure order in the history of the KBA in Frankenthal.

The production start-up of the new 4.32-metre wide TR12B and CT12 installations at Maul-Belser Medienverbund in Nuremberg certainly helped to sway the investment decision for the Liverpool plant.

The three TR12B press lines for the new gravure print centre are floor-mounted configurations, each with an 18-ribbon magazine superstructure and two single-width folders of the latest generation.

The presses will offer optimum prerequisites to handle magazines and newspaper supplements in all market-typical formats said KBA.

Arvato is investing 170 million Euros in the new Liverpool facility.

"Our market analyses and discussions with potential customers revealed that there was a distinct shortage of gravure capacity on the British print market.

We are now looking to exploit the opportunities this brings with our ultra-modern new production facility," said Hartmut Ostrowski, the chief exeuctive officer of Arvato.

Construction work on the 200,000 square metre site near Liverpool's John Lennon Airport are about to begin.

The first magazines, catalogues, flyers and supplements for the British market are scheduled to come off the presses by mid-2006.

The new facility will employ a workforce of over 400.

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