Financial details were not revealed, but speaking at Ipex 2010, Goss chief executive Jochen Meissner said Goss would continue to manufacture in Europe, the US and Asia and that it will not change staff numbers.

However, SEG chairman Xu Jianguo said the companies would look to "integrate and enhance sales and support capabilities in some regions, and optimise manufacturing operations throughout America, Asia and Europe".

SEG's decision to take full ownership follows a share issue in June 2009 that gave it around a 40% interest in the company - the company was previously 85% owned by private equity firm MatlinPatterson and 15% by Heidelberg.

Meissner said that the Goss board would remain fundamentally the same, and R&D spend would remain within 5%-10%.

"We are part of an international company that has an industrial strategy," he said. "This doesn't change our focus. Our mission remains to expand web offset, both into gravure and to drive the development of current web offset markets, catering for the trend in Europe to produce more pages per cylinder rotation."

SEG already owns a number of other printing equipment companies, including sheetfed press manufacturers Akiyama and Guanghua and post-press kit manufacturers Purlux, Yawa, and Shanghai Shen Wei Da Machinery,

Shanghai Electric is also showing the Akiyama Mega Jprint B1 sheetfed perfecting press as well as products from Purlux and Yawa on its Ipex stand (7/C456).