April 10, 2002 - As expected, Punch International of Belgium has acquired the activities of Xeikon America. It follows Punch's acquisition of Xeikon NV's digital color printing assets in Belgium in early March. The company says Xeikon America will continue its initiative launched in September to service and sell directly to end users in North America. Guido Dumarey, Punch’s CEO said there were many opportunities in North America and they plan to expand the sales channel for Xeikon America. Punch International and Xeikon America will present their new strategy and business plan for North America at an On Demand Press Conference. The Press Conference will be held on Tuesday April 23, 2002 at 11 AM at the On Demand Show in New York City at the Jacob Javits Center. Meantime, Xeikon will stop the market introduction of its sheet-fed digital color press, the CSP 320 D and focus on the web-fed DCP product family. Officials say the DCP products have been responsible for Xeikon's leadership position in production digital color printing with over 2,200 installations worldwide. According to a statement by the company, “This decision allows Xeikon to better allocate the technical and marketing resources that would have been required to successfully launch a second product line in the crowded and highly competitive market of mid-volume, cut-sheet systems. This is the first in a series of strategic decisions from Xeikon since Punch International acquired the company in March 2002.” Xeikon is evaluating the situation of the existing CSP customers on an individual basis. Together with the distribution partners it will search for a solution for each of them and in the mean time will continue to provide them full support.