In this age of digital print transformation, what is so exciting about the rebirth of a plate manufacturer? Well, first of all, it is a flexographic plate manufacturer in a strong and growing market, and second, it was formerly owned by Kodak. As previously covered, the Kodak Flexographic division was put up for sale in 2018 as part of the much larger ongoing Kodak restructuring plan. In November 2018, they announced that they closed the sale with London-based Montagu Private Equity LLP for $340 million, which included the sale and transfer of assets, their IP portfolio, the R&D teams, and manufacturing operations. The new company name is Miraclon. The Miraclon management team is lead by CEO Chris Payne and the technology development by CTO Zaki Ali, both previously with Kodak and there from the very beginning of Kodak’s entry into flexographic packaging solutions.

Miraclon is off to a good start. It is a global company with over 300 employees that has offices in Brussels, Belgium; Rochester, N.Y.; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Singapore. They have R&D centers located in Minnesota, Vancouver, and Israel, and two manufacturing locations in Japan and Oklahoma. Add to this a global supply chain they have been developing since 2008, and you can see they are in an excellent position to support the growing global packaging industry. Miraclon will be marketing their KODAK FLEXCEL Solutions through a Kodak brand licensing arrangement to preserve the existing identity. However, product development, manufacturing, and sales will all be solely owned by Miraclon. The only technology not transferred is the Kodak CTP imaging device, since Kodak uses that technology for their other businesses including offset platemaking, proofing, etc. Kodak will be a supplier of this technology to Miraclon.

According to CTO Ali, the genesis of the FLEXCEL solutions focused on how they could bring the significant Kodak expertise in thermal imaging technology into the flexographic market and not just to compete with the existing players in the flexo plate market, but actually create a solution that would differentiate them by transforming flexo printing at the same time. Continuing in that tradition of market disruption through technological innovation, they addressed the needs of sustainability and consistency with their FLEXCEL NX Ultra, an extension of the FLEXCEL NX portfolio, which uses a new aqueous-based development process.