Significant news from a huge player in the toluene-scented end of the printing industry, as Bertelsmann decides to hive off its worldwide gravure operations (plus a soup?on of web offset) into a separate venture.

The creation of a new, ?1.2bn turnover predominantly gravure business is interesting in the context of all the talk in recent years about the need for consolidation in the European gravure market. Last year Roto Smeets boss John Caris, a long-time champion of the consolidation cause, stepped down from his role after being frustrated in his efforts to put a deal of this ilk together for Smeets.

It also made me realise that Polestar is a mere minnow in comparison, having now shrunk down to a UK-only operation with sales of ?262m - a decade ago  that figure was ?535m and the group had a continental footprint with operations in Hungary and Spain.

The Bertelsmann suits say the spin-off is not a precursor to a sale of this new, as yet unnamed print giant. They would say that, wouldn't they? Donning my Gipsy Rose Francis headscarf and peering into my crystal ball made from an old Chromacom lens, I say it will be.