Following the acquisition, which was completed last week, a new division within Baldwin will combine AMS with Baldwin’s UV division and rebrand as AMS Spectral UV.
“We approached AMS nearly a year ago and they were one of many companies that we looked at. We believe that there is a need for and will be a lot of consolidation in this industry and this acquisition is part of that,” said Pat Keogh, one of the commercial leaders of AMS Spectral UV.
All AMS staff have been kept on and the rebranded AMS Spectral UV operation will continue to operate in AMS’ existing locations in Slough as well as River Falls, Wisconsin and Easton, Pennsylvania in the US. Steve Metcalf, former chief executive of AMS, will head up AMS Spectral UV as president of the new entity.
“We have kept the AMS branding because they have done an incredibly good job in the area of marketing, particularly in the electronic media. If you do a Google search for LED UV or sheetfed LED they’re at the top of the first page, so it would have been silly to drop that,” said Keogh.
“Traditionally, Spectral – the former name of the Slough business – had an incredibly good name in Europe, in particular for supplying UV systems in the 1990s and 2000s, before its name changed. We decided to bring back what was a very well known and established brand with a good reputation.”
The AMS LED UV product portfolio is used for LED curing in sheetfed offset printing and flexo packaging and the firm has a strong partnership with KBA. Baldwin claims that AMS’ installed base is nearly 10 times that of its nearest competitor.
Baldwin also said its own existing UV division has vast experience in highly reactive UV curing and numerous LED applications outside of traditional print markets.
“We’re going to cross train all of the service organisation groups and the end user experience will be dramatically improved because of that,” said Keogh.
“We’re also going to merge the R&D teams for future developments. Both companies have some IP and now we can take the best of both for future generations of products to come up with something that’s better.
“We are already two world leaders in this area and joining forces and research will take us to a level beyond anything else that anybody out there is offering now.”
Baldwin is part of the Barry-Wehmiller family of companies, which have a combined turnover of $2bn (£1.58bn). Baldwin’s own turnover was not disclosed but Keogh said AMS was roughly the same size and therefore Baldwin’s turnover has doubled following the acquisition.
