The Truepress Jet L350UV, previewed at last year’s Drupa, is billed as the fastest digital label press currently available, at over 16sqm of label stock a minute on a 350mm web. It offers photo-realistic quality, fast turnarounds and stable output. “Standout features include speed – 50m per minute – in a single pass, so it offers high speed and quality,” said a spokeswoman. “It’s highly reliable; users want maximum uptime from these printers for a rapid return on investment. According to the manufacturer the new kit creates smooth, vivid gradations and is based on Screen’s Equios workflow, while Screen’s proprietary high-definition UV inks provide a wider colour gamut than is typical with the four-colour process, it claims. Optional opaque white ink is available and the kit is able to print on to transparent film and metallic foil. The 600 x 600dpi press has single-pass greyscale piezo printheads with a minimum droplet size of 3 picolitres. Vice president of solutions and technology Tim Taylor said: “This will be a draw to people already producing labels digitally such as Indigo users. They will be excited by inkjets, as they understand the value of short run, personalisation and print on demand. Rival kit includes machines by Domino, Durst and, to a point, EFI.” The Truepress Jet L350UV will cost around £513,000 (€600,000) and is engineered as a roll-to-roll press for near-line finishing, or to feature automated in-line finishing such as lamination, die-cutting, foiling, coating and embossing. President for Screen Europe Brian Filler said: “This is a superb digital press designed to meet the needs of the market to produce highly competitive high-quality, high-value labels.” Meanwhile Screen Europe has appointed Dantex to sell new Truepress Jet L350UV in the UK, Austria, Benelux, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Switzerland and Turkey. The first European showing will be at Labelexpo from 24 to 27 September in Brussels. Chairman Richard Danon said: “This allows us to extend expertise and guidance to all our customers who are interested in digital printing without the loss of speed, quality or reliability.”...

The revised plan includes a new proposal, which is subject to court approval, for a $406m (£259m) rights issue involving shares in the ‘new’ Kodak. The issue of 34m shares will equate to around 85% of the new entity. If approved, the ‘Backstop Commitment Agreement’ will allow Kodak to settle its obligations with various key creditors, according to a statement from chief executive Antonio Perez. The proposal is being supported by Kodak’s committee of unsecured creditors, who are owed some $2.7bn, and is being backed by a number of the group’s major creditors: GSO Capital Partners, BlueMountain Capital, George Karfunkel, United Equities Group and Contrarian Capital. Kodak filed its initial Chapter 11 emergence plan last month. It plans to create profitable revenue streams from a number of key technologies, including Stream inkjet and SquareSpot imaging tech. Kodak aims to emerge from Chapter 11 protection in the third quarter. The filing also states that Kodak’s board of directors upon emergence will consist of nine directors: an [unnamed] chief executive, six directors designated by the backstop parties and including James Continenza (who joined the board in April), and two directors selected by the creditors’ committee. Kodak received a substantial vote of confidence earlier this month from major UK customer St Ives, which agreed a five-year supply deal with the company....

The Truepress Jet L350UV, previewed at last year’s Drupa, is billed as the fastest digital label press currently available, at over 16sqm of label stock a minute on a 350mm web. It offers photo-realistic quality, fast turnarounds and stable output. “Standout features include speed – 50m per minute – in a single pass, so it offers high speed and quality,” said a spokeswoman. “It’s highly reliable; users want maximum uptime from these printers for a rapid return on investment. According to the manufacturer the new kit creates smooth, vivid gradations and is based on Screen’s Equios workflow, while Screen’s proprietary high-definition UV inks provide a wider colour gamut than is typical with the four-colour process, it claims. Optional opaque white ink is available and the kit is able to print on to transparent film and metallic foil. The 600 x 600dpi press has single-pass greyscale piezo printheads with a minimum droplet size of 3 picolitres. Vice president of solutions and technology Tim Taylor said: “This will be a draw to people already producing labels digitally such as Indigo users. They will be excited by inkjets, as they understand the value of short run, personalisation and print on demand. Rival kit includes machines by Domino, Durst and, to a point, EFI.” The Truepress Jet L350UV will cost around £513,000 (€600,000) and is engineered as a roll-to-roll press for near-line finishing, or to feature automated in-line finishing such as lamination, die-cutting, foiling, coating and embossing. President for Screen Europe Brian Filler said: “This is a superb digital press designed to meet the needs of the market to produce highly competitive high-quality, high-value labels.” Meanwhile Screen Europe has appointed Dantex to sell new Truepress Jet L350UV in the UK, Austria, Benelux, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Switzerland and Turkey. The first European showing will be at Labelexpo from 24 to 27 September in Brussels. Chairman Richard Danon said: “This allows us to extend expertise and guidance to all our customers who are interested in digital printing without the loss of speed, quality or reliability.”...

In its interim management statement published this morning, the company said that an expected decline in print revenue of almost 10%, resulting from exiting non-profitable markets, had caused a £4.6m decline in group revenue compared to the £110m reported in same period last year. The decline in revenues was partially offset by the performance of St Ives’ marketing services, which experienced growth of 30%. Revenue and underlying profit across the marketing services division were reported to be “significantly ahead” of the equivalent period last year. The company said: “We continue to make good progress with our strategy to reposition the group and build an extended range of added value marketing services whilst exiting commoditised print markets.” It said that the figures been bolstered by the recent acquisitions of digital marketing agencies Amaze and Branded3, which the company said had integrated well and created a significant digital marketing offering that complemented and strengthened its existing capabilities. Progress and investment was reported in the development of the group’s consultancy service businesses with the relocation of retail consultancy Pragma to the group’s London head office to make room for planned growth. Additionally market research firm Incite, which was acquired in February 2012, made the division’s first move overseas with the opening of offices in Singapore and New York. Meanwhile St Ives’ exhibition and events and point of sale businesses were also reported to have performed well. In its book printing business Clays, the company said the effect of shrinking run lengths and more frequent reprints was being mitigated by implementing flexible working across the business and investing in digital technology. The group’s direct mail operation, St Ives Direct, continued to battle with a challenging market, “where excess capacity continues to exert downward pressure on prices”. The company said: “We keep the cost base of our remaining operation in Bradford under close scrutiny and will take further action to reduce costs should it become necessary.” The company said that despite ongoing investment in acquisitions and restructuring, the group’s balance sheet remained strong and underlying free cash flow continued to be robust. It added: “Whilst there is no sign of improvement from the difficult trading conditions across our print markets, our marketing services businesses are performing well, growing and combining to offer a unique and compelling customer proposition.” Share price dropped 8.5p during morning trading to 140.5p, at the time of writing....

“We’ve looked at technical services, as I think a lot of other people have already, and it was felt that we could get better value support from the mills and, where necessary, third-parties,” said Paperlinx UK managing director Phil Carr. According to Carr the division was primarily focussed on testing new products for internal quality control purposes, rather than a customer support function. He added that it made sense for the company, which last month rebranded its merchanting divisions as Paperlinx, to focus on investing in services that add customer value, such as the recently launched ‘printers’ webstores’, rather those that just add costs. “Originally it was a service that Robert Horne had for a long time for when different grades and qualities of papers could be dramatically different, with different characteristics from each mill. Quality and consistency has moved on dramatically in recent years and the mills have their own technical capability themselves now,” said Carr. He added that customer’s technical questions would continue to be fielded by technical sales staff and, when needed, the mills themselves. A consultation with the technical services department was launched in early May, with the decision to close the department finalised on 10 June. Six positions were made redundant as a result of the closure. “I appreciate it’s disappointing for the staff affected, especially those that have been with us for a long time, but the world is changing and the quality and consistency of the paper we sell has improved beyond all recognition in the past 20 years,” said Carr....