FRIBOURG, Switzerland, November 3 -- The Wifag-Polytype Group now enters the digital printing market. As part of this strategy, the group has bought up the Digital Printing Department of the company Spühl/Leggett & Platt. The change of ownership will take effect from 1st November 2008, and includes the department's 30 staff in Switzerland and USA.

This new department will be integrated into Wifag Polytype Holding AG as the WP Digital AG business unit and will be located at Wittenbach near St.Gallen in Switzerland. Wifag Polytype Holding has approximately 1500 employees worldwide and is active in the fields of rotary printing presses for newspapers (WIFAG), package printing presses, and converting plants for the cosmetics, food and pharmaceutical industries (Polytype), as well as trading with graphics machines and accessories (Wifac).

WP Digital AG will continue to focus on development, sales and servicing of digital UV large format printers and will act as a digital printing centre of excellence in the Wifag Polytype Group. The production of the digital large format printers will continue to be done by Spühl AG, on behalf of WP Digital AG.

The overall objective is further growth for WP Digital AG, as well as the opening up of new areas of use for digital printing, using the existing sales channels combined with the opportunities offered by the Wifag Polytype Group.