More Circle firms sold

Circle Media Group has sold its German printing operations to the same newly-formed company that acquired its Finnish gravure business two months ago.

Printers Group has acquired web offset printers J Fink Druck and Körner Druck, which are both located in the Stuttgart area. Fink was founded in 1875, and Körner in 1885.

The businesses were put up for sale in April after Circle Media Group announced that rising paper prices and falling volumes had left the group unable to continue, with the result that its Dutch and Austrian printing operations were placed into insolvency and the remaining businesses put up for sale.

Printers Group said it would have sales of around €110m (£97m) this year as a result of the buys.

Separately, Rotterdam private investment house Shatho Beheer is understood to have acquired Dutch web and sheetfed printer Senefelder Misset, which went into administration alongside Roto Smeets in April

A source close to the situation said that there was currently no sign of a revival of the once-mighty Roto Smeets gravure printing business: “Roto Smeets Deventer and Weert seem definitively closed”, the source said.