Bertelsmann closes its last gravure printing plant
Prinovis, which was one of the most important printers in Europe, will soon no longer exist. After the closure of the German site in Dresden in 2021 and the one in England scheduled for next June, the German group Bertelsmann Printing Group will bring down the curtain on its last site dedicated to rotogravure printing, located in Ahrensburg, Germany. 545 jobs will be lost with the closure of this printing plant on January 31, 2024.
« It’s inevitable. » says Ulrich Cordes, CEO of Prinovis and CFO of Bertelsmann Printing, which has 7,000 employees, in a statement. The director mentions « the negative evolution of the market, which has accelerated in recent years » . He regrets that the European gravure market, the company’s mainstay, has been in structural decline for over a decade. Demand for large catalogs in particular, as well as for magazines and supplements, has dropped « in a spectacular way » during this period.
« Beyond that, the repercussions of the pandemic and the huge increase in paper and energy prices have caused our clients over the past two years to repeatedly rethink their marketing strategies and often turn to digital communication solutions. » The accounts of Prinovis Ahrensburg have thus gone into the red « for some time now ».
In its latest quarterly report published in November, the parent company Bertelsmann, which also owns the RTL Group, the book publisher Penguin Random House and the music company BMG, confirms that Bertelsmann Printing Group has been confronted with sharp increases in paper and energy prices in the rotogravure and offset sectors.
On a positive note, she adds that the book printing business in Germany and the United States has grown « in a satisfactory manner » and that the marketing and communication activities of Bertelsmann Printing « continue to grow » .
Lire : PrintIndustry du 9 février
Jean-Philippe Behr
