Headquartered in Lawrenceville, Georgia, Vanguard – which Durst bought exactly a year ago – produces machines for the signage, decoration, business equipment, industrial, and packaging sectors.

The business has just established its European branch, Vanguard Europe, in Brixen, Italy, in a building adjacent to the Durst headquarters, and will now also offer its wide-format portfolio in the European markets.

The move is intended to leverage technical and administrative synergies between the two companies.

Despite the acquisition by Durst, Vanguard remains an independent company under the leadership of founder and CEO David Cich.

Durst’s Divisione Vendite Italia will handle distribution and service in the Italian market, while in other countries distribution will be established and expanded over the coming months, depending on Vanguard’s strategic decisions.

"With the formation of the European branch, we are bringing the Vanguard printer portfolio, which has been extremely successful in the US, to the European markets and are opening up new customer segments,” said Durst Group CEO and co-owner Christoph Gamper.

“Despite the difficult pandemic period, this is a clear signal to the market for large-format printing systems. With this step, we offer our customers new opportunities for production excellence and, in combination with innovative workflow and ERP solutions, a complete production chain from pixel to output.”

In a press conference yesterday (12 October) at Fespa, which is being held at the RAI exhibition centre in Amsterdam until Friday, Durst demonstrated Vanguard’s new VR6D flatbed printer.

The 2.5x1.2m machine, which has been launched at the show today, uses Ricoh Gen6 printheads. In quality mode it can print at up to 90sqm/hr. The CMYK printer supports white and varnish and can be configured for different applications due to its modular design.

It can be seen running on in Hall 5 on stand 5-K20.

“This is our mid-range machine, and it can print onto any substrate up to four inches thick. The price point to the end user for this printer is roughly $150,000 [£110,000] with 10 printheads, which includes support of white,” said Cich.

Two more recently launched Durst machines are also being “unveiled to the broad public for the first time” at Fespa, under the company’s slogan ‘From Pixel to Output’ – the P5 350 HS and the P5 TEX iSUB soft signage printer.