In reaction to PrintWeek's exclusive stories about the KBA initiative, Manroland Sheetfed has issued a statement from its Offenbach headquarters in Germany.

It said it had been focused on "normalising" the business and reassuring customers since the acquisition of the business by British group Langley Holdings in February.

The statement said: "We are a little surprised by this move on our competitor’s behalf, particularly since the future of our business is now assured.

"KBA have no in-depth knowledge of our systems, no access to genuine spare parts and no access to our technical experts here in Germany when they need it. This is not the behaviour of a world-class company and we think that the majority of our customers will recognise this move by KBA for what it is - opportunistic."  

It has also emerged that Manroland Sheetfed will no longer supply Roland 900 presses to KBA, which had OEM'd the press for metal decorating applications.

Manroland Sheetfed said this was not a tit-for-tat move.

KBA director of marketing Klaus Schmidt countered: "I don't know the reason for this statement. Opportunism has never been part of the KBA business strategy. In the last three years KBA has been the only one of the big German press suppliers to solve all the financial problems resulting from the bad market situation with its own strength and not with state aid or money from its shareholders. 

"However, after the recent insolvency of Manroland customers and former representatives of Manroland asked us for support since they are concerned about the performance of the remaining Manroland service organisation. We will see how we can help them. If we offer service for Manroland presses to the users they can be sure that we will have the right technicians to do the job and the spare parts they need. Otherwise such an offer would make no sense at all," Schmidt stated.

• Manroland Sheetfed and Manroland Web Systems are understood to be close to agreeing a global sales and service co-operation, after Langley acquired the majority of Manroland's worldwide sales businesses and Manroland Web Systems said it would team up with Sheetfed on support in some territories.