Koenig & Bauer AG

WÜRZBURG, GERMANY—Nov. 15, 2011—While the third quarter saw demand in the press engineering sector slow, German press vendor Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) profited from a strong presence in niche markets such as security printing, metal decorating and industrial coding, where demand is robust. In the summer quarter, the group booked new orders worth €472.8m, the highest level since the record year of 2006. The order intake for the nine months to October was up 15.4 percent at €1,155.7 million (2010: €1,001.2m). The order backlog passed the €800 million mark for the first time since summer 2008, totalling €810.8m.

August marks the 150th anniversary of German press manufacturer KBA’s Frankenthal production plant. The citizens of Frankenthal – and gravure printers the world over – still often refer to the company as Albert, even though this name was dropped in 1995. Common roots in Oberzell Founder Andreas Albert qualified as a master craftsman under Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Bauer – the inventors of the steam-powered cylinder printing press and founders of the world’s oldest press manufacturer –

Alongside production workers the measures will affect all departments not directly engaged in market development and customer support. Having just completed a capacity adjustment in the summer that involved several hundred layoffs at its web press production plants, KBA is unwilling to lose more staff who will be difficult to replace when the economy picks up again.

Defying the financial crisis, a strong euro and a pre-Drupa lag in demand for sheetfed presses, in the first three months of the year German printing press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) posted a 5.5 percent increase in new orders to €370.3m (2007: €350.9m). Its web and special press division bucked the industry trend with major contracts from US and Turkish newspaper publishers, which helped boost the order intake by an above-average 10.6 percent from €180.2m to €199.3m. And despite a sluggish US market, the volume of incoming orders for sheetfed presses, at €171m, was roughly the same as the previous year (€170.7m).

WÜRZBURG , Germany—Georg Schneider, head of the development department at KBA’s main web press factory in Würzburg and one of the most innovative members of Germany’s press manufacturing industry, will retire on 30 April shortly after his 67th birthday and almost 53 years after joining the company. More than 700 patents have been awarded to date on over 150 of Georg Schneider’s inventions. Presses of all kinds, from small-format digital offset to KBA’s unique Cortina waterless newspaper press, bear his signature, although with the modesty of an inspired engineer he tends to shun the spotlight. Georg Schneider joined Koenig & Bauer as an apprentice