Poland's Premier Printer Develops Super Plant

Winkowski, one of two biggest Polish printing companies and one of top 10 offset printers in Europe, is building a new printing and logistics centre.

Winkowski, one of two biggest Polish printing companies and one of top 10 offset printers in Europe, is building a new printing and logistics centre.

What is said to be the biggest printing house in Poland will be located in Wyszkow near Warsaw on 16 hectaresof land, formerly owned by the Daewoo-FSO car company.

Tadeusz Winkowski, the president of Winkowski, has just launched the plans for the new plant, which shows that the site will incorporate 6.5 hectares of production halls.

One of original halls has already been refurbished and by the end of May a new large format sheet-fed KBA Rapida 162a press will be installed, the company's first equipment investment in new printing house.

In September, the next large format press from KBA will be installed, claimed to be the biggest sheet-fed press in Poland, when a Rapida 205 offering a 205mm x 185mm printing area, arrives.

Further investments will include a saddle-stitching line from Ferag and two high volume web heatset presses, planned to be installed in September and November, added the company.

The whole investment project, excluding real estate and ground expenses, will cost more than 40 million Euros.

The company added that between January 2006 and December 2010, there will be a lot of new equipment installed in the Wyszkow printing and logistics centre, including 12 web offset heatset presses, six sheet-fed offset presses, three CTP systems, 12 binding lines and some inserting and foiling machines.

Until the end of 2005 more than 350 people will work in Wyszkow and before 2010 the site will hire more than 1,200 people.

Tadeusz Winkowski said: "We consider that 6,000 people will find work in companies co-operating with us.

It is a very investment in Wyszkow, which is a city of 27 per cent unemployment.

That's why we expect real cooperation from the local authorities, in building new roads for our transportation, for instance.

In April, the company signed a contract with Polish Mail, which will handle all our mailing and subscription activities.

A similar agreement was signed a few years ago with Polish Mail in Pila, where our main printing operations are based.

According to the new agreement Polish Mail in Wyszkow will send more than 60,000 items per month." He added that the new investment is mainly focused on export production growth.

"In Wyszkow we will print colour magazines and catalogues for our foreign customers.

I want emphasise that Poland has very big potential in printing services.

We are located in the heart of Europe and we believe that our new Wyszkow plant will become an important point of the European printing map," added Winkowski.

The company was founded in 1998 after a merger of Zaklady Graficzne in Pila and Superkolor in Warsaw.

Two weeks later 35 per cent of shares were acquired by Quad Graphics and Quad currently has a 42 per cent stake in Winkowski.

From 1998 to 2004 Winkowski's production grew at 250 per cent and according to the 'Rzeczpospolita' daily newspaper its market value rose to 670 million PLN (approximately 170 million Euros) last year.

Last year's sales was estimated at 500 million PLN (approximately 125 million Euros) and the company was ranked as the ninth 'most precious private Polish company' according to 'Rzeczpospolita'.

Since 1999 production at Winkowski has doubled, and by then there were nine heatset presses working in the company's plants.

Currently there are 23 heatset presses, six sheet-fed presses, seven CTP systems and multiple post-press systems working in three plants.

In 2004 the company printed 800 million copies of magazines and used 160 thousand tons of paper with 75 per cent of Winkowski's production focused on high volume colour magazines, whilst 15 per cent of throughout was in catalogues and 10 per cent was commercial leaflets and books.

Winkowski exports its products to 24 different countries.

According to PIRA research, Winkowski is ranked as the ninthth biggest offset printing company in Europe but in eastern European region the company is number one, added Tadeusz Winkowski.

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