The deal for the circa 50-staff company, based in Malton, North Yorkshire, went through yesterday (2 October), EFI's second corrugated acquisition, after it bought US-based Corrugated Technologies Inc (CTI) two years ago and then launched its first single-pass Nozomi corrugated packaging press. While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, EFI said the fee is not expected to be material to its Q4 or full-year 2017 results.
Nick Benkovich, EFI’s senior director of portfolio product management, who oversaw the acquisition, said that the deal had been in the pipeline for around a year and leads EFI to become “the only single vendor on record to say we control everything from order to shipping [in corrugated packaging].”
“Corrugated was traditionally not a sexy industry but more and more we’re seeing corrugated – especially as we move into digital print – become more of a standard packaging medium,” said Benkovich.
“You can produce beautifully coloured prints on corrugated board, the runs are getting shorter and there is a massive variation in sizes and printing. For us it has rounded out the portfolio and we can now control the order, acquisition, estimating and job management.”
Founded in 1985, Escada Systems, which has been rebranded as EFI Escada Systems, offers a variety of corrugated workflow products for all elements of the printing process, including its Optima integrated rollstock programme, Profile process controller, Syncro corrugator controller and Clarity job reporting programme. It says its systems can lead to production increases of between 10% and 25% and waste reductions of between 0.5% and 2.5%.
Away from the Malton office, it has an Escada Innovations subsidiary office in Hull and an Escada Systems Inc office in Atlanta, US, which will be consolidated into EFI’s Atlanta facility, with all five staff transferring across. Benkovich confirmed there will be no redundancies and Escada founder and chairman Gavin Bushby will remain in his role, with all staff being brought under EFI’s Productivity Software business unit banner.
“I explained to staff in the welcome presentation that when we acquire these companies it’s not just acquiring the technology, it’s the people that make the technology,” added Benkovich.
Bushby said: “We are very excited to join the EFI family and to play a role in EFI’s strategy for the packaging industry.
“EFI’s global scale and reach will enable more customers to benefit from our innovative technologies for years to come. I look forward to being an active member of this world class organisation.”
Earlier this year, EFI also acquired Xerox’s Free Flow Print Server (FFPS) digital front-end business.
