Flint Group Realigns Organization

Flint Group announced a reorganization aimed at enabling customers to have full access to their products through a single sales contact. Product lines serving the print media market for production of newspapers, inserts, magazines, catalogs, direct mail, stationery, and forms have been integrated to form Print Media Divisions in Europe and North America.

Commenting on the changes, Charles Knott, CEO of Flint Group, said, "Our business units can now offer the full range of products and services demanded by the print media market comprising coldset inks, newspaper flexo inks, heatset inks, publication gravure inks, sheetfed inks as well as press room chemicals, printing blankets and sleeves for all offset printing processes. We want to make doing business with us easier and more efficient for our Print Media customers by offering a main contact person at Flint Group to cover the total range of products and services for their business."

Dermot Healy, vice president, Day International Europe was appointed president, Print Media Europe while Bill Miller, president, Inks Americas, is now president, Print Media North America. Dennis R. Wolters, president, Day International, announced that he will retire at the end of June.

"It became apparent soon after Day was acquired by Flint Group, that we could only provide the full benefit of the complementary product ranges to our customers if we were to bring the offset inks businesses, the printing blankets and press room chemicals businesses which serve the same markets, closer together," said Wolters. "In doing this it would also make dealing with us more efficient. We also have started to exploit the potential that exists in bringing the respective research and development activities and technical service teams closer together. We are committed to drive performance further beyond the point of improving each single product focusing on their interaction on the press to further optimize the printing process."

In Asia-Pacific, Flint Group will transition from a country-based structure to a divisional organization. As a first step, Brent Stephen, in addition to his responsibility as managing director Australia/New Zealand, will lead the business in Asia-Pacific as senior vice president for Print Media Asia.

Further, Flint Group formed a global Packaging and Narrow Web division, comprising the Packaging Inks activities in Europe and North America, and the global Narrow Web business. The division is headed by Dirk Aulbert, who was formerly president, Inks Europe. The Packaging and Narrow Web division manufactures and markets a wide range of printing inks and coatings for the packaging and label markets worldwide.

Aulbert said, "We will steer our marketing and product development centrally to leverage formulation expertise, best-in-class standards and know-how across the sites, regions and segments. At the same time we are committed to a local sales and technical customer service model that in many cases already today gives us more local presence than many of our local competitors can offer."

When asked whether the move was driven by the current economic conditions, Knott noted, "After the major acquisitions between 2004 and 2007, we focused our efforts on the physical integration of the various companies that formed Flint Group as it is today. We improved our efficiency enormously, and as such our customers benefited from it. However, to foster growth, we proactively want to pick up our customers in their places by adapting our organization to fit to the markets our customers operate in. So while the decision to reorganize was taken as a proactive step long before the economic crisis became apparent, I would consider it the right move at the right time."