中文There is no polite way to describe the current shape of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen’s strategy, so it is worth stating plainly: the world’s best-known offset press manufacturer is simultaneously consolidating its grip on sheetfed printing, building autonomous ground vehicles for European defense, and preparing to manufacture sodium-ion battery cells. All three appear in the same quarterly update. All three are described as core to the same growth agenda.
Heidelberg calls this a transition toward a more broadly based technology company. Whether that reads as bold diversification or strategic drift depends largely on what one makes of the first quarter numbers, which are not comfortable.
The Print Business: Buying the Neighbours
The most conventional part of the plan is also the most consequential for printers and packaging converters. Heidelberg has integrated manroland sheetfed Group’s lifecycle business along with its global sales and service companies, and completed a full acquisition of Polar’s postpress systems operations. Together these deals substantially strengthen the company’s position as a systems integrator across the sheetfed workflow — press, postpress, service and consumables under increasingly common ownership.
Buried in the manroland transaction is a detail with real product implications: Heidelberg has secured the intellectual property rights for the Roland 900 and Cartonmaster in the large-format sheetfed offset segment. The first press of this model has already been sold, and the company is examining further production and development options for the system at a low-cost location.
That is a notable move. Large-format sheetfed offset remains central to folding carton production, and Heidelberg has just acquired a competing platform in that segment rather than simply absorbing a service network. Manufacturing it at lower cost, if that materializes, would give the company two distinct large-format offerings at different price points — a defensive position against Chinese press manufacturers who have been competing precisely on that basis.
The commercial logic is reinforced by where the money is coming from. David Schmedding, chief technology and sales officer, described the company as targeting investments toward growth markets while boosting its service, consumables and spare parts business. He added that this allows Heidelberg to increase the proportion of repeat sales and better balance new machine business, which tends to depend on economic trends. For a capital equipment maker facing volatile order intake, growing the recurring revenue base is arguably the single most valuable thing the manroland lifecycle acquisition delivers.
The Defense Business: Drones From Ukraine
At the recent ILA Berlin aerospace show, Heidelberg’s Onberg venture signed a memorandum of understanding for a further joint venture with Ukrainian drone developer Skyeton. Skyeton’s portfolio includes surveillance drones described as combat-proven, and these are being combined with Heidelberg’s unmanned ground vehicle to form what the company terms an autonomous system of systems.
The reasoning behind the partnership is that unmanned air-ground systems currently being developed in Ukraine’s rapid innovation cycles are increasingly seen as a future defense solution — a reasonable assessment given how much of contemporary drone doctrine has been written under actual combat conditions rather than in procurement offices.
Onberg has also moved from concept to demonstration. In July 2026 it opened a Live Hub at its Brandenburg site to show integrated counter-UAS capabilities, where representatives from public authorities, critical infrastructure operators, the armed forces and industry can observe how integrated drone protection works in practice. Airports, energy infrastructure and industrial sites all face a drone problem that currently lacks off-the-shelf answers, and a demonstration facility is the standard route into that market.
The connection to printing is not thematic but industrial. Heidelberg builds large, precise, electromechanical machines at scale and services them globally. Unmanned ground vehicles require broadly similar competencies. It is not an obvious pivot, but it is not an arbitrary one either.
The Battery Business: Printing Process, Different Product
The third initiative comes closest to genuine technology transfer. HD Advanced Technologies is entering sodium-ion battery storage system production in partnership with the Swiss company Phenogy. Initially, HD Advanced Technologies will handle industrial manufacturing of complete energy storage systems for Phenogy, covering procurement, production, rollout, installation, service and maintenance.
The more interesting phase comes next. The two companies are preparing groundwork for a joint venture to develop and manufacture sodium-ion battery cells, based on Phenogy’s cell chemistry and a specific printing process from Heidelberg. That last clause is the crux of the whole diversification argument. Coating precise, thin, uniform layers onto a moving web is fundamentally what a printing press does, and battery electrode manufacturing is a coating problem. Sodium-ion chemistry itself is attracting attention as a lithium alternative that avoids the more constrained parts of the raw materials supply chain.
The Numbers Behind the Ambition
Underlying conditions were challenging during the first quarter of financial year 2026-27, covering April through June. Incoming orders totaled EUR 537 million, only slightly below the EUR 559 million of the prior-year quarter — which the company reasonably describes as a solid foundation. A single distortion explains much of the gap: the phase-out of a state-subsidized investment program in Italy cut orders there by more than EUR 60 million year over year, with positive developments in China and the rest of Asia only partly offsetting it.
Sales are where the pressure shows. Revenue came in at EUR 404 million against EUR 466 million a year earlier. Adjusted for special items, the EBITDA margin was 0.2%, down from 4.4%. Free cash flow stood at EUR -77 million versus EUR -68 million, which the company notes is typical for this point in the year. The net result after taxes was EUR -32 million, against EUR -11 million previously. Sales rose significantly in China, the UK and Brazil but fell elsewhere, particularly across EMEA.
Segment detail is more encouraging than the group figures. Heidelberg Technology exceeded the prior-year period on both orders and sales, with adjusted EBITDA stable at EUR -4 million. Print and packaging equipment saw lower orders and sales, attributed partly to an expected EMEA downturn. Digital Solutions and Lifecycle posted orders around 5% higher than a year earlier, with sales matching — the recurring-revenue thesis showing early evidence.
Chief executive Jürgen Otto framed the year as being all about investments in line with the strategic agenda, aimed at strengthening market position and tapping new potential to create a basis for profitable growth and sustainable value enhancement. The full-year forecast is confirmed: group sales matching the previous year, with a noticeable improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin, assuming no substantial exchange rate changes.
A 0.2% EBITDA margin leaves little margin for error while three expansion programs run in parallel. The confirmed guidance implies management expects the second half to carry the year.
Source: THE PACKMAN, August 20, 2026 — Heidelberg ties growth strategy to manroland, Polar deals and drone defense push
