Canada’s largest printing company signed an agreement to install four Koenig & Bauer AG Commander CT presses, which are to be built in a triple-wide design, for facilities in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. KBA is calling the deal one its “biggest newspaper or semi-commercial contracts... in recent years,” as Transcontinental continues its push into the newspaper production market with clients like The Globe and Mail, La Presse and San Francisco Chronicle. The four presses will have a total of 16 towers, four single and two double folders and six heatset dryers. Installation of all four presses will start in the first quarter of 2010.
On the same day, Transcontinental also announced that it has signed two new financing agreements for a total of $135 million. One of these is a five-year term loan of $50 million arranged with the Société générale de financement du Québec. The other is with HypoVereinsbank, a major European bank, for six-year financing of $85 million, which will be used to buy production equipment over the next two years.
Along with these two new financing agreements, Transcontinental has obtained an additional $25 million in the one-year credit facilities recently arranged with its bank syndicate. This new amount is in addition to the $125 million previously announced on May 5, 2009. This gives Transcontinental an extra buffer in the management of its capital expenditures, working capital and other specific needs.
According to KBA, the Commander CT press is engineered with a compact design to lessen the press footprint that typically consumes newspaper facilities. Transcontinental is planning to combine coldset and heatset operation, around the new installations.
“Although the Daily News in New York can lay claim to the first triple-wide Commander CT installation in North America, we’ll be the first print operation worldwide with multiple press lines printing hybrid coldset/heatset products or coldset newspapers alongside heatset commercials,” said Brian Reid, President of Transcontinental’s printing arm.
The presses for Transcontinental will be controlled by KBA ErgoTronic consoles and incorporate heatset dryers with auxiliaries, KF 5 single- or double-jaw folders and KBA Pastomat reelstands, embedded in Patras A automated reel-logistics systems. Each press line will have a maximum hourly output of 90,000 full-colour newspapers, inserts or magazines with up to 48 broadsheet or 96 tabloid pages.
