Speaking as the German-headquartered group announced its Q3 results, Friege said: “Because of Brexit, we are enabling our photofinishing lab in Warwick to also take on commercial online print business, first, in digital printing, possibly even in offset printing.”
Cewe owns online print business Saxoprint, and Friege said UK results for its online commercial print offering had been weakened by “the ongoing idiocy of this Brexit movement”.
The Warwick move has helped reduce turnaround times for UK customers using its web-to-print services. “That actually helped us to shorten the delivery times and with that, also gain the focus of this being a local business and so some of the problems that we've recorded on Brexit, hopefully, will look less severe next year than they looked this year,” he stated.
A Cewe spokesman told PrintWeek: At our photofinishing facility in the UK, we mainly use existing and already installed digital printing machines to print on-the-spot print products for the commercial sector. We do this mainly to optimise delivery times and reduce logistics costs. So far, we have manufactured the UK market exclusively in Dresden, Germany. Whether we invest in litho printing [at Warwick] has not yet been decided.”
Overall group sales in Q3 rose from €130.3m (£115.3m) to €137.2m year-on-year on the back of the acquisitions of photo product firm Cheerz and online printer Laserline.
Photo products sales increased from €96.3m to €100.4m although volumes fell because of the unseasonably warm weather.
Commercial online print sales increased by €3.7m to €23.9m, due to the acquisition of Laserline and “slight organic growth”, but the business posted a €900k EBIT loss (2017 EBIT: 400k) due to cost increases, price pressure in Germany and one-off impacts related to the integration of the Laserline acquisition, which was slightly behind the expected schedule.
Total group EBIT fell from €3.6m to €1.4m, which Cewe attributed to the “negative contributions of acquisitions as expected”.
Friege said the group was confident it would hit its targets for the full year, as Christmas orders in the busy final quarter ramped up. “I can say we are perfectly equipped for the expected peaks in demand in the fourth quarter and with that, we will do the best possible for our shareholders in Q4, but most of all, for our customers to give them joy in their Christmas and give them the most personal gift you can imagine,” he said.
Cewe’s Warwick business had sales of £9.7m last year, Saxoprint's UK business had sales of £5.8m.
