Seamless transition: on 30 January, José Antonio Díaz (2nd from left) and Juan Díaz (2nd from right) handed over management of Koenig & Bauer Lauvic to Sascha Fischer (left). Also present were Thomas Longhino (centre), CFO of Koenig & Bauer Sheetfed, and Jan Drechsel (right), managing director of Koenig & Bauer Iberica

Koenig & Bauer now with its own branch office in Spain

• Stronger presence will benefit local print companies
• Sales and service for sheetfed offset, digital & web, and flexo presses
• New managing director: Sascha Fischer

Press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer will be operating through a branch office of its own in Spain in future. With immediate effect, the current agency Koenig & Bauer Lauvic in Barcelona is being taken over and transformed into a 100-percent group subsidiary. Sascha Fischer has been appointed as new managing director.

Sascha Fischer is an inveterate sales professional whose product knowledge and decades of experience in the printing industry stand him in good stead for his future management tasks at Koenig & Bauer Lauvic. He has held various managerial positions at Koenig & Bauer Sheetfed since 2010, including sales manager and sales director for a number of different regions, as well as interim managing director for Koenig & Bauer France. From 2015 on, Sascha Fischer was head of product management and product marketing for sheetfed presses at Koenig & Bauer’s Radebeul location. He will be using his experience to provide new impetus to both existing Rapida users and future Spanish customers, enabling them to align their business activities to the rapidly changing market conditions.

Current and prospective users will benefit from a stronger presence of the Koenig & Bauer brand in Spain, and from the even more direct communication between the local office and the individual business units and manufacturing plants of the Koenig & Bauer Group.

Koenig & Bauer Lauvic retains its current responsibility for sales and service for the sheetfed offset product portfolio, for digital & web offerings, and for CI flexo presses. Twenty staff look after the needs of Spanish print companies. A parts store with a full assortment of spares and wearing parts ensures the fast availability of all necessary supplies. All existing contacts remain unchanged. In other words, customers and business partners can continue to interact with Koenig & Bauer Lauvic using the familiar channels.

The previous owners and managing directors José Antonio Díaz and Juan Díaz are to remain involved with the company as advisers to the new management. Under their leadership, Koenig & Bauer Lauvic grew into a highly successful partner to the Spanish print and media industry over the past 30 years. With well over 30 presses from the Comet series installed on the mainland and on its various islands, Spain was once the largest regional market in the world for single-width newspaper presses. The company has been responsible for sales and service for Rapida sheetfed offset presses since October 2014.