In a wide-ranging interview, Torrey, whose new formal title is president/CEO for Ferrostaal Equipment Solutions North America (FESNA), took a few minutes with PrintWeek to explain that Ryobi already has about 40% of market share for smaller format presses, with more than 17,000 installed in the North America, along with about 100 Ryobi larger presses in use.

"So the opportunity is building on the small presses installs that have been sold over the years to focus on larger formats concentrating on six- and eight-up presses," he said.

Torrey has thus far lined up 10 independent dealers and 40 technicians to provide local support and suggested that eventually he may end up with 15 to 20 dealers around the US and Canada.

One of FESNA's first orders of business was to clear some misinformation in the market that the company would not have parts locally. This week it announced that it would be supplying genuine Ryobi parts across North America through its new parts center in Memphis, Tenn., located close to the FedEx headquarters, so parts can be delivered as quickly as the next day. Ferrostaal's inventory of parts and consumables are for the Ryobi 920, 750/780, 520, 3304 and 3302 series presses - as well as legacy Ryobi presses."

While FESNA has lined up Ryobi as its first US partner, Torrey suggested the company may eventually be looking at additional partnerships in the future. "We'll be expanding our offerings in the printing segment first and then we'll move into the packaging segment and possibly beyond that. The people that we're bringing are mainly going to be used to train, and support installations through our local dealer network."

Torrey has spent nearly three decades in the commercial printing equipment space and has seen its ups and downs. But going forward he says there's reason to be upbeat about the new equipment market in North America.

"The used/foreclosure equipment market is starting to disappear after doing quite well for the last couple of years as people cleared our excess inventory," he explained, adding that the value of the yen seems to be slowly declining against the dollar, which would also be good news for Japanese press manufacturers such as Ryobi that are looking to sell into the US. "That's one of the reasons I'm cautiously optimistic about 2012, even though it's taking longer to close sales - normally we might close something in 4-6 months, but now it's taking 6-9 months to close a deal,"

One reason for that that delay is the challenge commercial printers face in getting the financing for new equipment, which is something FESNA is looking to tackle head on.

"That's a huge thing that Ferrostaal is bringing to the US and Canada," Torrey said. "We're going to offer financing with our money, so it won't be the traditional route where a printer goes to a bank for a loan. We can track money differently than what a bank might do and because of that, we can tell if a printer is doing better than what is reflected in a bank statement which may only show a modest profit."

Torrey explained the concept of dealer financing is fairly new, adding "In the US it's brand new. All you've seen in the past is banks financing, brokers financing or manufacturers doing recourse, which is nothing more that guaranteeing someone else's signature on a loan.

"In Latin America, where we've done quite well, probably 80% of our business has been financed through Ferrostaal dollars rather than outside dollars," he added.

FESNA may also be able to benefit from some of challenges facing other equipment, though Torrey said that for now the troubles facing a company such as Manroland are not having much impact on the market. He did however suggest that the equipment makers may end up facing some of the same pressures affecting other parts of the industry, adding, "I think you'll see other manufacturers not make it, because where every other part of our industry has consolidated, there were more press manufacturers last year than anytime."

Over the longer term, Torrey also expects China equipment suppliers to eventually begin having an impact on the US market, noting that could end up being beneficial for FESNA if it's able to help bring some of those brands into the US market.

But in the meantime, Torrey is readying his first fully-staffed sales rep meeting in the coming weeks confident that Ferrostaal has the right first equipment client in Ryobi.

"Traditionally printing has been done by local printers," he said. "You do have larger companies like CGX and RR Donnelley, but there are a lot of $5m-$8m printers that are attracted by the half-size presses that we manufacture. The other equipment that I think will get a lot of traction this year is the Ryobi 920 series, which can print eight up and provide the option of a 40" press for a lot less money. It also requires less energy, fewer consumables, and less floor space so it has a lot of advantages for commercial printers."