2016 and all that... February

No guesses as to which story dominated the news in 2016, the 20 most read stories on printweek.com for 2016 are all about Polestar. Nevertheless there was plenty else going on, not least of all Drupa...

Communisis slimmed down its executive team with a new board and reporting structure... Imagedata Group invested £1m in an Inca Onset X3 wide-format flatbed UV inkjet printer... Commercial printer Flexpress invested around £1m in two Ryobi LED-UV presses... The Delta Group installed an HP Indigo 20000... Tullis Russell Papermakers was fined £50,000 after a worker was injured in a work practice branded “Heath Robinson-esque”... Platinum Print acquired local competitor Harrogate Printing... Oasis Graphic Co bought exhibition graphics company Mustard Solutions to strengthen its own exhibition arm... Manroland Sheetfed posted improved results for the fourth consecutive year following acquisition by Langley Holdings... Paragon Group spent £3m re-equipping its Service Point network... James Cropper won a contract to recycle up to 100 million used McDonald’s coffee cups a year... St Ives issued £13.8m-worth of new shares and took on an additional £10m of debt in order to fund the acquisition The App Business... Former TV mogul Michael Green backed a £6.7m bid to buy back Tangent Communications. However, later in the month Writtle Holdings launched a rival bid, valuing Tangent at more than £8.7m... Calderprint bought Hudson & Pearson’s property and plant from administrator BDO in a seven-figure deal... A House of Lords decision to scrap the tradition of recording Acts of Parliament on vellum sparked an outcry. Later in the month the Cabinet Office offered to pick up the costs of continuing to use vellum, around £80,000 a year... The Independent confirmed it was to ditch its print editions and go online only, with one of its founders suggesting other national dailies were likely to follow... Inspired Thinking Group bought digital agency Creator... KnowledgePoint installed the UK’s first Xerox iGen 5 150... Rosehill Press invested £1m on a new five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 and finishing kit... The New Day, an “upbeat” and “politically neutral” national newspaper was launched by Trinity Mirror. However, on the same day Trinity Mirror also reported significant declines in revenues and profits... Fisherprint bought a new Speedmaster CX 102 as part of a £2m investment... W&G Baird splurged £4m on new kit including an eight-colour Speedmaster XL 106 and a Kolbus KM600 perfect binding line... 

Polestar: six months of mayhem

Things look up – and down – for the mag printer... Click here for the full story