Ad-hoc | 27 September 2007 13:28
KOENIG & BAUER AG / Agreement
Release of an Ad hoc announcement according to § 15 WpHG, transmitted by
DGAP - a company of EquityStory AG.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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Press manufacturers Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) in Germany and Officine
Meccaniche Giovanni Cerutti S.p.A. (Cerutti) in Italy have signed an
agreement transferring to Cerutti for an undisclosed sum all KBA’s
intellectual property rights (know-how, industrial designs and patents)
relating to rotogravure printing presses for magazines, catalogues and
decorative paper. KBA will design and manufacture the folders for all new
Cerutti publication rotogravure presses. In addition KBA will continue to
provide after-sales service for the rotogravure presses it sold up to the
date of the transaction. The agreement will allow the two groups to
optimise the development and manufacture of their products and to achieve
substantial synergies. It will deliver major competitive advantages to
printers operating publication rotogravure presses in a highly competitive
environment that is being further exacerbated by the evolution of other
printing process and new communication technologies.
The agreement was approved by KBA’s supervisory board at its latest
meeting. The sale to Cerutti of KBA’s gravure business, which for some time
has felt the impact of weak demand in the gravure market, will lead to
personnel changes at KBA’s production plant in Frankenthal. As KBA
president Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann had already announced in the company’s
half-year report published in mid-August, slack demand in the newspaper
industry during the past eighteen months also means that capacity must be
reduced at KBA’s newspaper production plants. The scenario envisaged by the
board of directors for downsizing capacity and safeguarding earnings will
first be discussed by the competent worker committees before concrete
figures are released. Despite the slide in demand for multi-unit press
lines the KBA board reaffirmed its forecast that group profit and pre-tax
earnings in 2007 would be roughly on a par with the previous year.
27.09.2007 Financial News transmitted by DGAP
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Language: English
Issuer: KOENIG & BAUER AG
Friedrich-Koenig Straße 4
97080 Würzburg
Deutschland
Phone: +49 (0)931 909-4835
Fax: +49 (0)931 909-6015
E-mail: bernd.heusinger@kba-print.de
Internet: www.kba-print.de
ISIN: DE0007193500
WKN: 719350
Indices: SDAX
Listed: Amtlicher Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard), München;
Freiverkehr in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart
End of News DGAP News-Service
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