The contrast is clear. British industrial group Langley Holdings is reporting a pre-tax profit of 152.3 million euros in 2025 on sales of 1.34 billion euros. At the same time, the printing machinery business recorded a loss of 43.2 million euros. The subsidiary concerned is the German manufacturer of sheet-fed offset presses, Manroland Sheetfed.
Since its takeover by Langley Holdings in 2012, Manroland Sheetfed, which designs and assembles all its presses in Germany, along with chemical compound producers Druck Chemie of Germany and BluePrint of Belgium, has formed the group's Print Technologies division.
In 2025, this Print Technologies division will have sales of 271 million euros, 1âeuros615Â employees (out of 5400 for the entire Group) and an order book of just 32 million euros. By way of comparison, the Groupâ??s consolidated order book stands at 2.07 billion euros, most of which comes from the Power Solutions division.
Options under consideration for Manroland Sheetfed, but machine park "will continue to be assisted"
Langley Holdings' annual report mentions " another difficult year with mounting losses" for Manroland Sheetfed .
The Board of Directors reports that "and is currently considering its options".
However, he would like to reassure printers equipped with Manroland Sheetfed presses: "We are aware, however, that a large number of printing companies, the vast majority of which are SMEs, depend on Manroland presses, and our aim is that, whatever solution we ultimately choose, the installed base will continue to be supported."
And while he doesn't elaborate on the options envisaged, he does indicate, in the section concerning Power Solutions, that part of this division's ramp-up will involve the reallocation of capacity "underutilized the German site dedicated to Manroland machines, "the largest industrial installation of the group.
Moreover, despite Manroland Sheetfed's situation, Langley Holdings points out that in June 2025, Manroland Sheetfed announced a partnership with Heidelberg. The agreement provides for Heidelberg's return to the Very Large Format segment. The presses concerned will be based on Manroland technology and integrated into the Prinect digital environment. The partnership focuses on the packaging segment. First deliveries are scheduled for this year.
Druck Chemie and BluePrint outperform targets
On the other hand, the Chemicals Division, with Druck Chemie and BluePrint, outperformed its targets (figures not given), although " druck Chemie's subsidiaries in France and Italy did not achieve their targets, although they made a very positive contribution."
This business remains largely uncorrelated with investment in new presses. " But in Europe, Druck Chemie's main market, the sector is in the midst of a transition towards higher value-added, lower-volume digital printing. Nevertheless, e-commerce is driving mass production in the packaging sector."
