The Retford-headquartered diversified engineering group has put its print-related businesses – Manroland Sheetfed and Druck Chemie Group – into a new Print Technologies division.

The division had sales of €300m (£250m) in the year to 31 December 2021, with chairman Tony Langley reporting a “very successful year” at Druck Chemie, which includes HiTech Chemicals and BluePrint Products.

Manroland Sheetfed made a loss despite “a strong year of order intake” as the business battled with supply chain frustrations and absenteeism caused by the pandemic.

Langley said he expected 2022 to be a better year at the Germany-headquartered press manufacturer thanks to a record order backlog.

He described the Roland 700 and 900 press ranges as “state-of-the-art and technologically industry leading”.

“This has, undoubtedly contributed to a very strong order intake during the year and confirming that confidence has returned to the sector,” he stated.

However, he also warned: “However, until such time as productivity returns to normal, sacrifices will need to continue.”

Potts Print in Cramlington installed the UK’s first Roland 700 Evolution press during the period.

The Print Technologies division has €112m in orders on hand, with forecast revenue for this year of €400m.

Langley, who personally owns 100% of the group, was also forthright in his views on home working, and commented: “Whatever the personal preference of an individual, it is now not the time to debate the relative merits of home working. The group’s position on this matter is that unless legally required, those that do not normally work from home are to return to their normal place of work.

“The time is now to get our businesses back to full strength and efficiency and that means office workers working in offices.”

Langley Holdings also owns packaging technology specialist Bradman Lake Group which supplies equipment to the food and pharma industries, and also to paper converting and publishing. It is part of the group’s ‘Other Industrials’ division which had sales of €250m last year.

The overall Langley Holdings group of businesses, which employs 5,339 people worldwide, had sales of €814.63m in 2021, up 6.2% on 2020, and pre-tax profits recovered to €128.2m (2020: €24m).

Langley is predicting group sales of €1.3bn for this year.