A much-evolved Ferrostaal Australia is changing its name back to Print & Pack following a buyout headed by managing director Carsten Wendler.

The company which at times held both the manroland and Manugraph press agencies, now has the partnership of QI Press Controls and EAE as its main connection with the newspaper industry.

Wendler (pictured) came to Australia at the end of 1996 after joining Ferrostaal in Germany a couple of months earlier, and six years after entering the graphic arts industry with Jagenberg. He was appointed general manager of its packaging division in 1998 and managing director in 2013.

The name Print & Pack ANZ is a reversion to the trading style used until 1998 (and later as Intergrafica Print & Pack), and harks back to the 1980s partnership entered into by printing engineer Ron Craven to secure the then MAN Roland press agency (as Craven Engineering Services and then Craven Print & Pack)

Craven was to be rewarded with a share in the giant 1987 order placed in Melbourne by News Limited for colour Newsman newspaper presses for the UK and Australia, some of which are still in use.

The separation of MAN Roland from its parent German truck maker led to the global name change from IPP to MAN Ferrostaal in 2006, and a little over two years later a by then independent manroland took the agency away, setting up its own subsidiary in Australia and New Zealand, after Abu Dhabi-owned IPIC bought 70 per cent of MAN Ferrostaal.

Signs of an impending split had come with the appointment of Dietmar Zutt as the manroland delegate in Sydney in 2007, and of factory-nominated members to a service team in the city. manroland Web Services Australia was established as a partnership between the two soon after, strengthening support for newspaper and commercial web customers in the area.

Ferrostaal lost the ANZ agency for Indian single-width press maker Manugraph to NZ-headquartered Webco, and Richmatt Graphics has recently taken it for Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. Two Manugraph print sites remain in Australia - in Warwick (relocated from Ballina) and Rockhampton - from the six installed by APN News & Media between 2006-2007.

In addition to QI Press Controls and EAE, current agencies of Print & Pack ANZ include Econo-Pak packaging robotics, and a variety of flexo printing, diecutting and packaging equipment.