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Barco Graphics and Purup-Eskofot will merge
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SEPTEMBER 14, 2001 — On September 7, 2001 at the PRINT01 Conference in Chicago, Barco N.V., the
parent company of Barco Graphics, and Kirkbi A/S, the parent company of Purup-Eskofot, announced that
they have finalized an agreement to merge Barco Graphics and Purup-Eskofot into one company.
Forty-nine percent of the new company will be owned by
Barco N.V.; fifty-one percent will be owned by Kirkbi A/S.
The temporary name for the new company is "BPE." A
permanent company name will be decided upon and announced in
the first quarter of 2002. BPE will combine
the management, R&D, manufacturing and distribution
resources of the previous entities; and the product lines
of the companies will be merged, giving BPE the broadest line of computer-to-plate
products of any organization in the world.
The combined turnover of the two organizations is in
excess of EUR 250 million / US$ 227 million.
Barco Graphics
Barco Graphics is the leading global supplier to the
packaging industry for digital pre-production
solutions and the only supplier to offer an integrated
approach to graphic and structural workflows. Barco is
also the world market leader in flexo computer-to-plate
imaging. In addition, it is the world leader in digital
prepress solutions for the cartographic market. Furthermore,
as an OEM supplier to Xeikon and IBM, Barco is
a leading player in the digital document-printing market.
Purup-Eskofot
Purup-Eskofot is a leading digital prepress supplier. It is also the
world leader in copydot-scanning solutions and in the
computer-to-polyester-plate imaging market, where it
has OEM and distribution agreements with AB Dick and
Mitsubishi Paper Mills.
Corporate Office to be Located in Belgium
BPE will be based in Gent, Belgium. Development of
hardware products and software products will take place
in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Czechia and the USA.
All manufacturing facilities will be in Europe.
Schulin-Zeuthen Named as CEO
William Schulin-Zeuthen, currently President and CEO of Purup-Eskofot, will become
CEO of BPE.
BPE's Product Portfolio
The product lines of both companies will be consolidated
into a single product portfolio; where overlaps occur,
BPE will select the
best products for each specific market or application.
For example, in the area of offset computer-to-plate imagers
for commercial printing, the portfolio will focus on
Mondrian, the fastest and most automated Very Large Format (VLF)
830 nm thermal CtP unit available, and on PlateDriver,
a new series of internal-drum CtP machines launched at PRINT01.
The standard commercial-printing-workflow product for BPE
will be the Barco-developed FastLane system, which
runs on Windows NT/2000 and uses Adobe PostScript technology.
The FastRIP/FlexRIP and FlexProof line of very-high-performance
raster image processors (RIPs) will drive the complete range of
BPE's imaging and proofing devices. These RIPs run under
Windows NT/2000 and accept PostScript 3, PDF, and the
Barco Graphics native language.
The BPE product portfolio will also include:
- Cyrel Digital Imager (CDI), a flexo
computer-to-plate device family
- computer-to-film devices (2/4-page DotMate, 8-page ImageMaker, and VLF MegaSetter Plus)
- DotMate and DPX, 2- and 4-page polyester-plate CtP systems
- DMX, a line of visible-light, internal-drum
newspaper CtP systems
- EskoScan, the market-leading medium- and large-format
copydot-scanning system
- ScanMate, a series of high-resolution flatbed CCD color scanners
and desktop drum color scanners
- SpinJet, an imposition proofer that provides
high-speed accurately registered double-sided imposition proofs
- PackEdge, QuickStep and ColorTone, which
are leading packaging-pre-production software tools
- Plato, a layout tool for optimized package and label output
- ArtiosCAD, a structural-design environment that
includes WebCenter, which forms the basis for
customizable web-based solutions for packaging converters
- BackStage, a workflow-management/automation system
- EskoNet, a newspaper-workflow solution
- the Kongsberg XL series of automatic cutting and creasing tables for sample-making and short run,
along with ColorBeam, an inkjet-printing option for one-step sample production that includes graphics
- Mercator, software for publishing maps and charts
- AtlasVIP, a prepress tool for the rapid design and generation of atlas pages
- PrintStreamer, a variable-data-printing product
that has Xeikon and IBM as OEM clients
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