*NEWS*FUJI XEROX SNAPS UP UK INK MAKER

[Anonymous]

Fuji
Photo Film said it would buy Avecia, the British ink-dyes supplier, for
£150m in February, to bolster its copier and printer division.
Avecia, a private, Lancashire-based company, has a share of some 40 per cent in the ink-dye market.

Fuji Photo snaps up ink maker
Japanese camera giant
Fuji Photo Film is to snap up Manchester-based ink dyes supplier Avecia
Inkjet for $260m (£150m). The deal is part of the world’s second
largest camera maker’s efforts to counter shrinking demand for its film
products caused by people using digital cameras and printing photos at
home.
Fuji Photo is buying the business from Avecia Group which is
owned by Cinven and Investcorp and will be left focused on
biotechnology. The private equity firms funded a management buyout from
Zeneca for £1.3billion in 1999 around the time of the merger with Astra
to form the drugs giant.
 Fuji film canister
Fuji’s acquisition is aimed at tapping into surging demand for home use ink-jet printers
Avecia
Inkjet employs 340 staff in Manchester, Scotland and in the US, making
inks and ink dyes for printer manufacturers such as Canon and
Hewlett-Packard.
Fuji Photo said the acquisition was aimed at
tapping into surging demand for home use ink-jet printers. It wants to
boost Avecia Inkjet’s sales to Y30billion (£150m) by March 2010 from
Y14billion.
In 2002 Hewlett-Packard’s printer ink was found to be
more expensive per millilitre than Dom Perignon champagne. But the
recent entry of low-cost producer Dell to the printer market has put
pressure on consumer prices.
According to market analysts Dealogic,
the value of cross-border deals in which Japanese companies bought
foreign firms has more than doubled to $233billion this year. The move
has been fuelled in part by the surging Nikkei-225 index, which climbed
166.30 to 16107.67 yesterday – its highest close for more than five
years.

Bringing Inkjet Solutions to Life
When Avecia Ink
Jet Printing Materials was founded in 1985, inkjet printing was an
industry in its infancy. Today it is one of the world’s fastest growing
technology sectors – and Avecia remains at the forefront of innovation
for ink and colorant development.
Avecia Ink Jet Printing Materials
holds a market leading position in the development and supply of
desktop / home office colorants and inks.Inkjet technology is rapidly
advancing beyond the home/office environment into a wide range of
industrial markets, including commercial print, packaging, electronics
and graphic arts. These applications have a highly diverse range of
ink, substrate and image quality requirements which demand that ink
developers have a wide range of technologies that can rapidly deliver
solutions.

Avecia Ink Jet Printing Materials offers a unique combination of critical mass and capabilities.
Research and Process Technology – Centres of Excellence
Avecia
Ink Jet Printing Materials offers a comprehensive range of colorants
which have been chemically engineered to meet technological
requirements previously unattainable in the ink jet industry.
At its
Research Centre in Manchester, UK, Ink Jet Printing Materials brings
together core competence in the fields of organic chemistry, resin /
polymer chemistry and formulation science to provide novel solution
developments.
Process development is undertaken at our sites in both
the UK and USA. Speed of response, delivery and close customer
collaboration are key aspects of this function and synergy with other
Avecia businesses is exploited.
The US site of Avecia Inc Ink Jet
Printing Materials is based in the Wilmington Delaware area. The
Process Technology Facility at the site is capable of carrying out
development and scale up of ink base purification and inks manufacture
to customer requirements. Flexibility, responsiveness and a commitment
to quality are a proven track record of supplying customers over
several years since the Facility opened in 1994.
Combine these with
our scale-up, manufacturing and processing facilities in Scotland,
France and the United States … and that’s what makes us the world’s
leading supplier.
Product Offering

We currently have
aqueous based YMCK colorants which are utilised within the Desktop
markets. The same products have found successful application in other
areas such as the graphic arts and proofing sectors.
Our first
generation products were introduced to meet the needs of the evolving
market. These same colorants are still in widespread use and our
customers have developed innovative delivery methodologies to ensure
the end users get what is wanted; and we have ensured the products meet
the increasing demands of our customers.
To meet the needs of the
markets as they evolved during the early 1990s, we introduced our
second generation range of higher performance sales products based on
novel chromophore developments by Avecia.
Our key product offering
is a solution approach to develop customised products for specific
applications. Through working closely with customers’ technical teams,
we can bring a range of chemistry options to the application
development team. Customers can focus on developing the application
while we provide the chemistry.
We understand the complex projects
required to successfully combine inkjet head technology, machine
engineering, media and ink technology to rapidly develop new inkjet
printing products.

ain Locations for Ink Jet Printing Materials
Europe
Avecia Limited
P.O. Box 42
Blackley
Manchester
M9 8ZS
UK
    
Japan
Avecia KK
4th Floor
Osaka Green Building
2-6-26
Kitahama
Chuo-ku
Osaka 541-0041
   
US
Avecia Inc
1403 Foulk Road
Suite 200 – 2nd Floor
Wilmington DE 19803
 
Steve Johnson
tel: + 44 (0)161 721 2614
fax: + 44 (0)161 721 5810    
Shuji Yokote
tel: + 81 66202 5651
fax: + 81 66229 0335 
Nora Dever
tel: + 1 800 552 1609
fax: + 1 302 477 8025
Kyle van Riper
tel: + 1 302 477 8026
fax: + 1 302 477 8025 

[Author]

December 27, 2005 at 10:03 AM