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It was announced in a recent staff meeting that Manroland’s main Offenbach site will cease all operations by June, with the majority of staff at the site to be laid off in the coming months
German offset print press manufacturer, Manroland Sheetfed, will cease operations at its Offenbach factory, with the closure directly affecting more than 660 jobs.
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the decision was communicated during a recent staff meeting at the site.
According to the report, it was announced that all new machine production is scheduled to end in late May, with 660 of the total 740 staff members on site to leave. All operations at the site will then conclude in early June.
A smaller group of around 80 personnel will continue working through the end of the year to manage the shutdown and facilitate the potential sale of the service and spare parts business units.
Regional sales operations including Manroland GB in the UK will continue to operate as service and engineering organisations.
The news regarding the Offenbach site follows the announcement in March that Manroland was entering into insolvency proceedings with financial support from its parent company, Langley Holdings.
The company was temporarily placed under protective shield proceedings (Schutzschirmverfahren), but Langley was unable to find an investor willing to support production of its sheetfed offset presses from its Offenbach site.
In its insolvency announcement, Manroland said that despite a “technologically advanced product portfolio”, sales at the company have been declining in recent years with “mounting losses”.
The decline has been attributed primarily to the shrinking market for litho printing presses, with China representing the biggest drop of around 40% of historic sales.
Founded in Offenbach as Faber & Schleicher before renaming to Roland Offsetmaschinenfabrik, the company pioneered the world’s first sheetfed rotary offset press in 1911. Merging with the print division of MAN in 1979 to form Manroland, it remained a major player and innovator in the offset print market for over a century,
The company fell into financial difficulty in 2000s and despite a 2012 rescue by UK-based conglomerate, Langley Holdings, the manufacturer succumbed to factors including a shifting digital landscape and failed attempts at restructuring.
