UPDATE: Agfa Closing Lastra Deal

By: Jim Rosenberg Having gained the approval of European antitrust authorities, Agfa-Gevaert announced today that it will close its acquisition of Lastra, the Italian manufacturer of offset printing plates, related chemicals and equipment, at the end of August.

Agfa said it expects the transaction, valued at 155 million Euros, to be accretive from the first year. The deal continues a consolidation among plate/platesetting system suppliers.

Agfa has led that industrywide consolidation, going back to its 1995 acquisition of Hoechst, supplier of the digital laser plate that successfully revived efforts to bring computer-to-plate output to newspapers. Three years later it expanded its offerings when it bought DuPont's plate business.

In 2001 Agfa acquired Autologic, into which already had been merged Information International Inc., developer of the 3850 film imager that became the basis for Autologic's FD-YAG plate imager and Agfa's principal violet platesetter for U.S. newspapers. Autologic earlier had used the Gerber device that directly imaged the Hoechst plate in Europe in the early 1990s. In 1998, Barco Graphics bought Gerber's platesetter business, and in 2002 merged with Purup-Eskofot. When the resulting Esko-Graphics exited the newspaper business a year later, it was Agfa that picked up service and support of those customers.

Lastra Newspaper and Canadian Sales Vice President Todd Socia said it is "far too early" to comment on the future of personnel, plants and products in the U.S. "Those types of conversations are still ongoing" between Agfa and Lastra, he said. "We look forward to the post-acquisition opportunities, he continued, adding that he expects the "strengths of both companies" to yield an "exciting product portfolio."

Agfa Graphic Systems North American Marketing Director Susan Wittner declined to comment on the integration of Lastra operations before the expected Aug. 31 closing.

With Lastra, Agfa now also gains the Western Litho Plate & Supply Co. business, including its U.S. plants, which Lastra bought in 2002 from Mitsubishi Kasei. The Western Lithotech brand appeared on most of the first CTP systems adopted by larger U.S. newspapers in the late 1990s. Lastra America is based in Danbury, Conn.

"I think it's a pretty amazing move by Agfa," said Jay Faulkner, sales director at plate manufacturer Anocoil Corp., Rockville, Conn. Before returning to Anocoil, (where he spent 18 years runing its sales to newspapers), Faulkner was with Lastra for five years, first as U.S. technical dircector (its first U.S. employee) and, after the Western Lithotech acquisition, managing the commercial group in the U.S.

Faulkner said Agfa has much to sort out. "There is a lot of redundancy in the two organizations on the commercial side. I don't know how much there is on the newspaper side." He speculated that, among other things, Agfa may recognize and preserve Western Lithotech's newspaper plate-handling technology.

According to Faulkner, Western Lithotech was moving to violet technology, working on an upgrde path for its YAG (green) DiamondSetters. He said he thinks the "DiamondSetter technology was kind of waiting for 100, 150-milliwatt" violet lasers that can power its higher-throughput machines.

Estabished in 1969 in Manerbio, Italy, Lastra had sales of 226 million Euros in 2003. Originally focused on analog plates, Western Litho brought it into the digital plate market. Lastra has six factories and approximately 900 employees.

The Agfa-Gevaert Group, headquartered in Mortsel, Belgium, develops, makes and markets analog and digital systems for the graphics, healthcare, micrographics, motion picture and photography markets worldwide.