LONDON: Walstead today announces a reorganisation of the Group which will merge responsibility for all of its print operations in the European Union under a single chief executive. This will bring Walstead Iberia, Walstead CE and Walstead Leykam under common leadership and is a response to the changing market for commercial print across Europe. Walstead UK is unaffected by this change. Walstead is the largest web offset company in Europe and as such has a unique opportunity to capitalize on its scale and geographic reach. These changes, together with further growth of its in-store marketing business in Poland, new value added services and digital content production in Rhapsody are central to the Group’s future strategy.

José Maria Camacho has been appointed to the new role of Chief Executive Walstead European Union with effect from 1 st June 2024. He is currently chief executive of Walstead Iberia and has been with the Group for 8 years and has spent most of his career in the print and paper industry.

As part of these changes the Group is also announcing that Grzegorz Czech, chief executive of Walstead CE, will be leaving his full-time role in the business. Grzegorz has been with Walstead since its acquisition of the Polish operations of LSC Communications in 2018 and has been with the business under Walstead, LSC and prior to that RR Donnelley ownership for 30 years. Grzegorz will remain with the company in a full-time capacity until a complete handover has taken place and will continue to support the business in a consultancy capacity and on an advisory basis thereafter.

Stefan Gutheil, chief executive of Walstead Leykam, who joined the business on a three-year fixed-term contract in 2022 will also remain with the Group until a full handover has taken place.

The market for heatset web offset printing has changed significantly since the Covid pandemic and the commodities crisis of the past two years with the result being much lower volumes and an oversupplied market. As the largest web offset printing company in Europe Walstead has the opportunity to present a single offering to the market rather than a divisional one based on the acquisitions made by the group over the past 10 years. This will help to create a leaner organisation and allow the business to work closely with customers to allocate volumes in the most efficient manner across the entire Walstead platform.

Chief Executive of Walstead Group Paul Utting said ‘Walstead has achieved its market leading position by constantly adapting to customer requirements and with a continually evolving landscape this change will allow us to develop our offering to remain competitive in Page 1 of 2 a challenging environment. We believe that all of our stakeholders, both internal and external, will benefit from this new structure. In particular, I believe that our customers will see improvements by having access to a wider range of the Group’s services and will provide confidence that their printed materials are being produced efficiently. We wish José Maria well in his new role and would like to thank Grzegorz for his many years of service during which he has shaped our Polish platform into one of the leading print businesses in Europe. We would also like to thank Stefan for his contribution to the Group in the time he has been with us.’

José Maria Camacho said ‘Walstead Group is evolving to meet the needs of our European customers in an ever-changing market. As we transition, we will be committed to delivering first-in-class services and products to our customers which are key to maintaining our future market leadership. I look forward to working closely with the management teams and our Board to get the best out of the opportunities that this change in our organisation will bring’.