Netherlands-based Crown Van Gelder (CVG) was declared bankrupt at the end of January and on 10 February it was revealed that the papermaker had been rescued and would restart production imminently on the back of a substantial fresh investment.
Today (1 March) the identity of the purchaser has been unveiled; EPAC Technologies specialises in supply chain management and printing logistics, including for the book sector. It holds several patents.
The Californian business is not connected to digital pouch printing specialist ePac Flexible Packaging.
Jan Rops, director of CVG, said: “Having EPAC as our partner is more than we could have dreamed of. CVG and EPAC codeveloped our leading inkjet paper more than five years ago and have continuously innovated even better performing papers.
“EPAC has always wanted the best for CVG and the industry as a whole. EPAC always told us to sell our unrivalled inkjet paper to everyone, including their direct competitors, without asking for a penny or royalties.
“They realise there is much more value in innovations and scaling up, then trying to keep things for themselves. This will change the industry in a great way for our customers.”
CVG sales director Rodney Jansen added: “CVG has the best inkjet paper and EPAC has the best quality and automation technology. The fact that we will be able to offer EPAC’s solutions to our key customers will change the world of digital printing and our other key markets.
“Many customers asked us ‘how is EPAC so successful and efficient?'. Now all of our customers will benefit from the same solutions.”
Sasha Dobrovolsky, CEO of EPAC, also commented: “CVG is an amazing company, with amazing employees, and incredibly loyal customers. We are honoured to be chosen as their partner.”
CVG said that it planned to make further announcements over the coming months “that will change the world of inkjet papers, alternative fibres papers, and specialty papers”.
The business had said on 10 February that it would be debt free, with more than €30m (£26.6m) of new capital from its partners to grow its inkjet, industrial, and alternative fibre papers.
It confirmed at the time that all 250 employees would be retained and that the capital injection would allow the business to invest in new kit and add new products.
The mill currently has production capacity of around 180,000tpa, and its key products include the Crown Native sugar beet papers. The products are sold both directly and through distributors, but primarily directly.
The business has been exhibiting this week at the Hunkeler Innovationdays specialist trade show in Lucerne, Switzerland. At the event, which concludes tomorrow (2 March), it is running its new Crown Letsgo High Performance Mail Card stock at 150m/min on the HP PageWide Advantage 2200.
Speaking to Printweek at the event on Monday, prior to the reveal of the company's buyer, Jansen said: “For us, this exhibition is serving two sides, the first is showing that we are still alive and back on track, so we are reconnecting with all of our current customers and current OEMs, because they were very anxious about what would happen. Our machines have already been started up, so we are already producing the paper. Secondly, this is the most important exhibition for the print industry, especially the inkjet industry.”
