中文The German-based Possehl Group, an internationally active, diversified industrial conglomerate, is acquiring the remaining shares in ManRoland Goss Web Systems, taking its stake from 51 percent to 100 percent. The deal buys out the former owner of Goss, American Industrial Partners, which now exits the shareholder structure. For a business whose name is synonymous with web offset, the transaction brings a cleaner ownership model to a segment that has weathered a long and painful contraction.
ManRoland Goss is the world’s leading provider of web offset printing solutions and dominates the commercial web offset market in Australia and New Zealand as well as around the world. ManRoland Web Systems and former rival Goss merged eight years ago, as the web offset market shrank dramatically, particularly in the newspaper sector. That consolidation was less a growth story than a survival strategy, and it left the combined entity reliant on a stabilising shareholder structure to navigate the decline of print runs that once seemed infinite.
The Possehl Group will consolidate managerial responsibility for ManRoland Goss under a single ownership structure. It says the clear ownership structure will facilitate shorter decision-making processes, strengthen collaboration with customers and partners, and enable long-term planning certainty. The ownership structure supports investments in the product portfolio, service, spare parts supply and retrofits, all of which matter enormously to a installed base that expects decades of support from its press maker.
Possehl itself is a corporate group founded in Lubeck in 1847 and has been wholly owned by the non-profit Possehl Foundation for 100 years. With ten operationally independent business divisions, 200 companies, approximately 13,000 employees in 30 countries, and most recent consolidated revenue of 8.4 billion euros, it ranks among the large, solid Hanseatic German corporate groups in the industrial SME sector. Its activities span mechanical and plant engineering, construction, precious metal processing, electronics and digital technologies.
As a foundation-managed company, Possehl says it is focused on the long term and spans generations, and its strong equity structure provides a reliable foundation for the further development of ManRoland Goss. Dr-Ing Joachim Brenk, chairman of L Possehl and Co, said ManRoland Goss is an important part of the industrial portfolio and that with the full acquisition the group is creating a long-term foundation to invest strategically in technology, product development and support for the installed base of machines.
For customers and business partners, day-to-day operations will remain unchanged. The strategic focus will continue to follow two main directions. First, the new-equipment business for system solutions in packaging, book, commercial and newspaper printing, as well as digital post-press. Second, the customer-oriented expansion of aftermarket solutions. Existing contacts, contracts, terms and conditions, and ongoing projects will continue as before, and delivery dates and service obligations remain in effect.
Franz Kriechbaum, CEO of ManRoland Goss, said the full acquisition gives the business a clear ownership structure and a robust financial foundation, and that for customers this means above all continuity and planning certainty in terms of investments, service and long-term machine support. At the same time, the company can consistently continue its technological development and portfolio of solutions.
The ManRoland Web Systems business was originally part of ManRoland, which went into administration in 2012. The sheetfed business was sold to UK industrialist Langley Holdings, but earlier this year that business was sold to its former major rival Heidelberg, a reminder of how thoroughly the structural map of printing press manufacturing has been redrawn. For web offset customers, a stable, foundation-backed owner is the best available insurance against further upheaval.
Source: This article is a reworking of reporting originally published by Print21 (print21.com.au) on 7 October 2026.
The full acquisition is best understood against the long arc of web offset’s fortunes. Newspaper and commercial web printing contracted sharply as digital media displaced print advertising and as run lengths fell, and the 2018 merger of Man Roland and Goss was an attempt to create critical mass in a shrinking market. A decade on, the question is no longer whether the segment is smaller, but whether the remaining demand can support a stable, well-capitalised supplier. Possehl’s foundation ownership is arguably the most reassuring answer available, because a non-profit owner with a century-long horizon is structurally immune to the quarterly pressures that have forced other press makers into distressed sales. For printers running web offset equipment with lifecycles measured in decades, that continuity is worth as much as any single product launch. It also frees ManRoland Goss to invest in the aftermarket and retrofit services that increasingly sustain press manufacturers, even as new-equipment demand stays subdued.
The transaction also closes a chapter of uncertainty that began when American Industrial Partners took ownership of Goss and later merged it with Man Roland. Private equity ownership brought capital but also an exit horizon that could complicate long-range planning for customers dependent on multi-decade support. With Possehl now the sole owner, that horizon disappears, replaced by the patient capital of a foundation whose time preference is measured in generations. For an industry that buys presses expecting twenty years of service, few things are more reassuring than a supplier whose own clock runs on a similar scale.
