The new venture, Print House Service, will be officially launched in the next few weeks and is focused on servicing non-KBA presses.

KBA has already recruited a number of former Manroland staff from Plauen and Augsburg in Germany, including a new service manager for web offset, and further positions are still to be filled.

Marketing director Klaus Schmidt said uncertainty over the future for Manroland had created the opportunity: "Can the new Manroland businesses satisfy the needs of customers? They lost a lot of good people.

"Manroland customers are contacting us," he added. "We already had about 30 sheetfed customers get in touch with us about new presses, especially packaging printers – they are long-term thinkers and KBA is thinking long-term."

KBA has the option to manufacture Manroland parts itself, or buy them on the open market. It may expand the offering to America and the Far East if the market response is positive.

Separately, KBA announced that it is close to setting up a joint venture in China for press manufacturing.

Rather than set up its own factory, the firm plans to take a majority stake in an existing Chinese supplier and then bring its know-how to the partnership.

President Claus Bolza-Schünemann said: "We hope to have a partnership coming up to be able to manufacture presses in China with a lower level of automation to address customers in that market."

Schmidt added: "We will make Chinese presses and make them better. It will be 'made by KBA in China' not made by KBA in Germany.

"We have good market share at the high-end in China but that is only 30% of the market. We want to address the rest of the market with products that are engineered and manufactured in China," he explained.

KBA expects to finalise its Chinese deal this year.

KBA unveiled a raft of new products this week at a special pre-Drupa customer open house in Radebeul. More to follow.