Coating manufacturer Leonhard Kurz, Fürth, Germany, has taken over the print finishing division of the Swiss mechanical engineering company Steinemann Technology, St. Gallen, Switzerland. The division will be managed as an independent subsidiary under the Kurz umbrella.

Kurz intends to retain and extend the St. Gallen location and will continue to sell the products under the Steinemann brand as an accompaniment to its Kurz Digital Metal product family. The full range of Steinemann print finishing machines will still be supported and will be supplemented by complementary services. The current offerings include the Colibri full surface varnishing unit with roller coater for UV varnish, as well as the dmax digital inkjet varnishing unit for spot and relief varnishing, which can be extended with the dfoil module for digital metallization.

New line of Kurz finishing solutions

Kurz has been involved in the development of the digital finishing process since the start of the decade. The company already offers two machine concepts for digital metal effects: the DM-Jetliner series for inline print enhancement, and the DM-Luxliner for independent, offline metallization before or after color printing. With the Steinemann solutions, the company now has extended its portfolio to include offline systems for quickly and efficiently finishing B1 and B2 format sheets. The dmax machine with dfoil module also allows the sheets to be varnished and metallized in a single pass.

Ljubisa Drinic, head of business area Application at Kurz, explained: “Kurz is a pioneer in digital print finishing. We developed the first machines and introduced them to the market long before there were solutions from other manufacturers. The incorporation of Steinemann is the next step in our pioneering work. Steinemann machines deliver exceptional product quality, and digital print finishing results of a high industrial standard that we consider to be market leading. The new Kurz subsidiary will combine this Swiss engineering expertise with our comprehensive know-how in coating technologies.”

With its greater focus on the digital print finishing machine sector, Kurz wants to breathe new life into the printing market.

“Print finishing is an effective answer to declining print orders. We are pulling in the same direction as all manufacturers of finishing systems to raise the importance of printed material,” explained Stéphane Royère, head of business area Industrial at Kurz. “By extending our product offerings we don’t compete with other manufacturers. We simply have expanded the range of available print finishing solutions and are jointly working towards making the added value of print products visible and tangible.”

For more information, visit www.leonhard-kurz.com.