Creo Buys Spectratech Plate Plant

By: Jim Rosenberg Creo Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, announced that it bought the Middleway, W.Va., printing plate manufacturing facility from Spectratech International Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Lithoplate Inc., maker and distributor of analog and digital lithoplates and related products in Wake Forest, N.C.

The all-cash transaction covers Spectratech's plate business, land, factory, equipment, and storage facilities for approximately $13.3 million and its inventory and accounts receivable for approximately $6 million. Creo said it expects that the acquisition will be accretive to earnings by the end of this calendar year.

The deal gives Creo a negative thermal plate for commercial and packaging printers and technology to develop a negative thermal plate for newspapers. Creo will launch both in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa immediately and in other regions later this year through its direct sales force and existing dealers and distributors.

Fortis PN was developed for newspapers' quick roll-up and low water consumption needs. The commercial Mirus PN joins a positive thermal plate that came with Creo's acquisition of a South African plant last year and is "optimized for medium to long run-length commercial printing," according to Creo. The Spectratech plant more than doubles Creo's plate manufacturing capacity, according to Eyal Shpilberg, corporate vice president, thermal consumables. "An important part of this transaction is the addition of people with years of experience in producing, selling and supporting high-quality plates," said Shpilberg in announcing the acquisition.

All Spectratech "manufacturing and field sales employees will transition with this arrangement," according to a statement from Southern Lithoplate.

Dating from the 1940s, the plant was bought and expanded by 3M Co. 3M spin-off Imation operated the plant until 1997, when Spectratech bought it and made further investment in it.

Southern Lithoplate has been supplying Creo computer-to-plate sites for several years, and "I still see us strongly aligned with Creo in the newspaper market," said Southern Lithoplate Vice President Steven Mattingly. Southern Lithoplate will continue to make thermal plates for newspapers, competing with Creo on some accounts and aligning with it on others, he said. Calling it "a tremendously healthy move in the market," Mattingly added that while it created a competitor, the sale helps to establish thermal CTP.

"We intend to continue to work with Southern Litho," said Creo Marketing Manager Paul Willis, adding that although his company "continues to strive to be a single-source supplier ... we recognize that newspapers value multiple plate sources."

Understanding customers' need for multiple vendors, he said Creo hopes to continue working with other suppliers, including Anocoil, and Kodak Polychrome Graphics. Some Creo customers also use Western Lithotech/Lastra plates.

Besides the fact that "[imaging] media revenues strengthen our position," Willis said a major reason for Creo's entry into the consumables business is that "the plate is a much bigger part of the CTP solution than film was to the filmsetter." In addition to platesetters and plates, Creo also seeks to be the source of workflow software, a new version of which it is now fine-tuning, according to Willis.

Qualified for Creo's Staccato 36 stochastic screening at 1200 dpi, Fortis is to be UV- and IR-sensitive, offer high resolution and high contrast, give up to 250,000 impressions unbaked, remain stable in storage, and resist scratches.