In an interview with PrintWeek, John Torrey, president of Ferrostaal Equipment Solutions North America, would not comment on specific pricing for the 760E presses, noting that it varies depending on the configuration and others factors such as currency exchange rates.

But he stressed: "Pricing for Ryobi’s newest press is tightly competitive with other economy presses on the market today.  Press pricing must be highly competitive — that’s just the reality of the equipment business now."

The 760E is based on Ryobi’s most successful modern press, the feature-rich Ryobi 750 series that is available in up to 10 colors with perfector. The 760E runs at a maximum of 13,000 sheets per hour.

It also features a large delivery pile capacity, a maximum paper size of 30.12" x 23.62" and can print on natural and synthetic substrates from onion skin to lightweight packaging grades.

Torrey also noted the 760E offers 20-plus percent lower power consumption at maximum power draw.  "The 760E also enables a greater sheet size, a larger printing area, larger paper thickness for job versatility and a double diameter 'skeleton' delivery drum for smooth, damage-free transport to delivery," he continued.

"We see this machine as a great option for printers who want to move up from older 2-up or 4-up presses. It fits best for printers who need a workhorse offset press to complement their digital offering."

Torrey said Ferrostaal North America has - and will to continue to offer - assistance with financing. "The very first wave of buyers coming out of the recession tended not to need finance," he added. "But we’re also talking to scores of printers right now who are actively considering our credit offer of three- to five-year financing at competitive market rates."

Ferrostaal stepped in as Ryobi’s sales and service representative in North America last October and Torrey said the company had quickly generated some sales with more placements to be announced in the coming months - particularly the 6-up 750 series and the 8-up 920 and 1050 series for general commercial printing, package printing and other specialty work like security printing.

"And we’re already getting inquiries from commercial and in-plant printers on the new 760E series press," he added. "Printing company capital continues to be very carefully deployed — there was a first round of investment made by the printers who had pent-up demand for new technology coming out of the recession.

"There is a broad group of printers now actively considering new equipment and some of them are starting to buy.  We see the sales cycle for an offset press now is running an average of 12 months from the time a printer starts looking."

Despite all the talk about digital, Torrey also said that new offset equipment is still in demand. "The offset equipment market in North America is well off pre-recession highs and probably will remain at a new structurally lower level with single-digit growth rates for the foreseeable future," he added.

"But that ‘new normal’ still means a fair number of new offset presses sold and installed in the U.S. and Canada each year. While there are always exceptions, many printing company owners tell us that there’s absolutely no way they would be a digital-only print business.  For them, it’s just too limiting."