Production of web presses at the former Goss International facility in Durham has ended following its merger to form manroland Goss web systems.

This and the decision to "let the market decide" which of the partners' packaging print offerings would survive, was confirmed by chief executive Alexander Wassermann in an interview in Berlin with GXpress Magazine.

"We will only build presses in Augsburg, so this means Goss commercial presses will no longer be produced in Durham," he says. A management exchange will see some of the American team working in Germany, but Wassermann says no permanent moves are planned. Neither Goss' US facilities nor manroland's Augsburg, Germany, headquarters are part of the merger deal, the latter owned by Lubeck-based parent L. Possehl & Co which will own manroland Goss with AIP.

Possehl split the former manroland web production unit into a separate mechatronics company last year, creating manroland web Production Company as a separate subsidiary.

With the merger, manroland Goss claims 100 per cent of the global heatset web market, with the exception of Japan.

A two-way licence agreement will see single-width presses such as the Community and Magnum Compact continue to be produced at the Goss Graphic Systems China facility in Shanghai - which is not part of manroland Goss - although Wassermann admits they may be "relatively expensive" when compared to Indian-made presses.

"We are not going to give away presses - we are not a charity, but are here to make money," he says.

In that connection, he's dismissive of the opportunity former Goss International owner American Industrial Partners had to purchase Goss China, and says that with press makers in some other countries "not profitable," there will be further supply-side mergers.

Both manroland and Goss had pinned future hopes on offset-based printing of flexible packaging, folding board and corrugated preprint, Goss with four installations of its Sunday Vpak press and manroland with one of its recently-launched Varioman. With little to choose between them, Wassermann says the market will decide which it wants, but either would be built in Augsburg.

"We didn't want to be in competition against flexo and didn't see a future in gravure," he says. "Even though offset is a niche, it will grow, with the market expanding as gravure is replaced."

During a panel discussion at the World Publishing Expo in Berlin, Alexander Wassermann said the merger was "the fifth such attempt in 20 years, and we have at last made it".

He says the business will be "much more global", with an installed base of 7500 presses and a strong service network. It will offer systems solutions, engineered solutions and automation upgrades, and service solutions and predictive service, with 450 service technicians around the world and an e-commerce operation to supply parts "across several producers".

While he says the new press market now brings in only a third of revenue, "there is still some business around".

Peter Coleman