Three KBA Compacta 215 commercial web presses and two mid-sized Rapida sheetfed presses in the printing house of Oceano in São Paulo, Brazil, have now been joined by the country’s first 48-page KBA Compacta 618 to take the South American success story to new heights. The publishing house of Escala was founded in 1992 by Hercillio de Lourenzi – who was 33 at the time – using his own savings of US$ 20,000 (€ 18,600). The first products included printed matter for newspaper kiosks such as flyers, fan cards, small fanzines and black and white comics. These were soon followed by rock posters and the rock magazine Top Rock. The foundations were laid for Oceano by purchasing a small printing house in the inner city area of São Paulo from where simple print jobs were handled by de Lourenzi personally using one used offset press. The publishing house grew much faster than the printing business and consequently print jobs were outsourced at an ever increasing rate. Escala has now become one of the largest publishing houses in Brazil after Editora Globo and Abril. In February 2002 Padilla Industria Gráfica with a staff of 160 was incorporated into the Escala group. Padilla, a Brazilian printing house well-known for commercial work and promotional literature whose roots date back 62 years, boasts two commercial web offset and two sheetfed presses.