Associated Newspapers to build new print plant

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Monday 27 June 2005

Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) part of The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) announced (today) that it is to build a new £80 million print plant on a brownfield site in Didcot, Oxfordshire.

With the installation of state-of-the-art Flexo presses ordered from Italian manufacturer Giovanni Cerutti Spa (Cerutti), ANL will complete its plans to produce every page of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday in colour. The new operation will create the capacity to print a 128 page full colour Daily Mail and a 160 page The Mail on Sunday.

Lord Rothermere, the Chairman of Associated Newspapers Ltd, said: “This is further evidence of our commitment to the long term future of our newspapers. At present on our presses at Harmsworth Quays in London, we can produce half our pages in colour, but with the addition of the new facilities at Didcot and enhancements to our existing press facilities we will have the capacity to provide full high quality colour throughout the country, providing even more value to our readers and advertisers.”

The twelve acre site at Didcot, which will be operational by 2008, was chosen because of its excellent transport links to the rest of the UK.

The decision to buy the Italian presses was taken after extensive research and tests.

John Bird, Managing Director of Harmsworth Quays Limited, said: “We believe that the new Cerutti satellite cylinders offer better registration and printing quality. It was a tough decision to make, because we have a very good business relationship with German print manufacturers Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA), who made the presses for Harmsworth Quays and we will continue to work closely with them, too.”

ANL also announces today that it will spend a further £16m with KBA to add extra units to the Harmsworth Quays presses as part of the upgrade to full colour printing.

ANL will be installing fully automatic print reel loading equipment at the new plant with storage room for 800 jumbo size reels. The new Cerutti presses also include a quarter fold mechanism that can be used for producing smaller sized commercial products throughout the day.

Christine Klafkowska, the present Production Director at Harmsworth Quays will manage the new print centre. Some staff will move from London to Oxfordshire but most personnel are expected to be recruited locally.

Cerutti provides presses for major Italian newspapers such as La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, la Stampa and others. They are specialists in flexo and photogravure presses.

Enquiries:
Peter Williams, DMGT, 020 7938 6631
Sarah Farley, Brown Lloyd James, 020 7591 9610