Oce Strengthens Position in Display Graphics

Oce Acquires Gretag Professional Imaging Division

VENLO - November 9, 2001 - Oce, a leading supplier of digital document management and delivery technology, and Gretag Imaging Group, Inc. reached an agreement on Oce's acquisition of Gretag's Professional Imaging Division. This division develops, produces and sells products for the wide format display graphics market including color inkjet and photo laser printers and RIPs (raster image processors) for indoor as well as outdoor applications.

The acquired division includes the following companies: Raster Graphics, (San Jose, California), Onyx Graphics (Salt Lake City, Utah), Cymbolic Sciences (Vancouver, BC, Canada) and ANAgraph (Costa Mesa, California). The combined 2000 annual revenue of the acquired division was US$ 105 million. The total number of employees is 450 including 90 in R&D. Sales, marketing and service are handled directly in the USA, the UK and Germany. Elsewhere, they are handled through a strong distributor network.

The product portfolio of the acquired division consists of, among others:

• The "Arizona" family of inkjet printers, globally recognized as the standard for mid volume wide format color printing.
• ONYX PosterShop, the leading wide format software RIP.
• The LightJet family of wide format photo laser printers.
• PosterGenie Workflow software.

Display Graphics constitutes the market for products enabling the production of color graphics in large formats. Typical applications include billboards, trade show graphics, banners, bus shelter posters, back-lit displays in airports, point-of-sale graphics in shops, fleet graphics on trucks or buses, and digital photo enlargements.

The customer base of Oce largely complements that of the acquired company. Oce has a strong position among blueprinters, print shops and in-house printing facilities. Gretag Professional Imaging Division has a strong presence among digital printers, photolabs, screen printers and sign makers.

The global market for the Mid- and High-Volume Display Graphics segments has an expected annual growth rate of 15%. With this purchase, Oce emphasizes its aim to be a leading player in this segment of the Display Graphics market. Oce already has a very strong position in black and white wide format printing.

Michel Frequin, Executive Director of Oce's Strategic Business Unit WFPS (Wide Format Printing Systems): "This acquisition is accelerating the rapid growth we are experiencing in this market today. It confirms and strengthens our position in the Display Graphics market. The integration of the acquired division provides synergy and facilitates availability of new products to existing as well new customer groups.

This acquisition underlines our strategy to become a leader in the Display Graphics market."

Rak Kumar, currently General Manager of Gretag Professional Imaging Division, will be appointed CEO of the new Oce Display Graphics Systems. Rak Kumar observes: "Oce is a strong company with an excellent reputation in the market. We are very happy to become part of Oce, a company with a clear strategy to become a leading player in the Display Graphics market. This merger will clearly strengthen our division and will enable us to serve our customers and distributors even better than in the past."

Oce intends to integrate the acquired division gradually into the current structure of the Strategic Business Unit WFPS without affecting the strengths of the present distributor network.

Parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Closing of the transaction is planned to take place within the next couple of weeks. Filing of the transaction with the appropriate anti-trust authorities has taken place.

About Oce

Oce is a leading supplier of digital document management and delivery technology. The company's solutions are based on Oce's advanced software applications that deliver documents and data over internal networks and the Internet to printing devices and archives-locally and around the world. Supporting the workflow solutions are Oce digital printers and scanners, considered the most reliable and productive in the world. Oce also offers a wide range of consulting and outsourcing solutions.

Netherlands-based Oce N.V. (NASDAQ: OCENY) has a workforce of more than 22,000 people and maintains production and R&D facilities in the Netherlands, the USA, Germany, France, Belgium and the Czech Republic. Oce's North American headquarters is located in Chicago with major business units in Chicago, New York City, Boca Raton, Cleveland, and Fiskeville, RI. Worldwide revenues were $ 3.2 billion for fiscal 2000. North American revenues were $1.2 billion for fiscal 2000 and employment was 7,500.

www.oceusa.com 

 

Sponsored Links

AnyDWG Offers DWG to PDF, DWG to DXF, PDF to DWG, DWG to JPG, PDF to DXF Converters

AutoDWG offers DWF to DWG, DWG to PDF , PDF to DWG, DWG to Flash Converters, DWG Viewer.

eCampus.com Get your stuff for College... Cheap! Textbooks, Greek Gear, DVD's, University Clothing, Computers and MORE!

Access Your PC from Anywhere Free Trial plus 10% Off!