2016 and all that... April

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...

The St Bride Foundation Library reopened to the public on Wednesdays only having closed down because of funding problems in July 2015... Palm Print celebrated its 25th anniversary with an investment in a new Heidelberg Linoprint CV 80... Emmerson Press bought the UK’s first Fujifilm Jet Press 720S digital press... DS Smith acquired TRM Packaging... While Macfarlane Group bought Colton Packaging Teesside... Pyramid Press ordered a new £1m B2 Speedmaster press... Boiler room fraud brochure printers Stuart Still and Marianne Van Santé were jailed for 40 months each... Wyndeham Group owner Walstead acquired €225m-turnover Austrian-based group Leykam Let’s Print, boosting total sales to almost £400m... HH Global won a five-year contract to provide all of Lloyds Banking Group’s non-transactional print and marketing... GI Solutions was bought in an MBO led by chief executive Patrick Headley... Geoff Neal Group became the first UK company to order a Drupa-spec Speedmaster XL 106... SignAway merged with two Danish companies to create new company, Amayse... JPL Print & Design installed a new five-colour Speedmaster XL 75... Former Tullis Russell staff who were laid off when the papermaker went into administration in April 2015, were each awarded the equivalent of eight weeks’ pay by an employment tribunal – £1.5m in total... Philtone Litho purchased a five-colour Speedmaster XL 106... Tecman Speciality Materials, a supplier to the industry, was fined after a young apprentice lost a finger in a rotary die press... Peerless Plastics & Coatings launched a new company, Direct to Media, as a platform to grow its trade printing service... Denmaur re-launched the Revive carbon-balanced recycled papers brand, previously owned by Paperlinx... The Plockmatic Group, owner of Morgana Systems, completed the purchase of Italian bindery kit manufacturer KGS... Avery Dennison agreed to acquire the European business of substrate manufacturer Mactac, in a deal worth around $200m...

Polestar: six months of mayhem

No laughs for Polestar on this April Fool's Day... Click here for the full story