Lars Christiansen and Mathias Schliep

Christiansen Print from Ilsenburg (Saxony-Anhalt) and the THIMM Group (of Northeim/Lower Saxony) combine their printing expertise and capacity to form a strategic partnership. With effect from June 1st, owner and CEO, Lars Christiansen, transferred 50% of his company to the THIMM Group, thereby replacing the previous financial investor. The European market leader in flexo-preprint products, Christiansen Print, remains an independent supplier within this market. Lars Christiansen will continue to manage his company solely in the future. Confidentiality has been agreed on regarding the purchase price.

Thanks to this co-operation, Christiansen Print has access to the capacities of the THIMM printing plant. The company is therefore able to provide its customers with printing formats from small up to large sizes, both cost-effectively and with a high level of quality – from small individual orders up to very high volumes. ”Our goal is, to diversify our portfolio in flexo preprint. We will offer a wider range of formats and printing qualities to the European corrugated cardboard industry at an attractive price-to-performance ratio“, explains Lars Christiansen. ”For this reason, we are pushing on with our growth and are strengthening our presence in European markets.”

Both companies currently offer a total preprint capacity of round about 300 million square metres, jointly making them the most important supplier of pre-printed corrugated raw paper in the market.

Mathias Schliep, CEO at THIMM, also anticipates synergies and growth potential: ”This co-operation expands our printing expertise with an important component. In addition to flexo-postprint we now also cover a technology-mix in flexo-preprint within our company, which is unique. This provides much more flexibility. In combination with offset printing and digital printing, we are able to give better support to our customers with regard to the marketing of their products, as we can vary all printing technologies for the secondary packaging and displays that are used in the market.“

Since its founding in the year 2005, Christiansen Print has been a success story. The company, which very quickly became the innovative market leader for flexo preprint products, currently has 50 employees and a turnover of around €16 million. The technological core of Christiansen Print is the largest servo-driven flexographic printing machine in Europe, featuring a production capacity of 120 million square metres. The machine operates in eight colours, and is able to print formats of up to 2.5 metres in width and two metres in length, delivering a speed of up to 460 metres per minute at the same time. ”The machine is most efficient at a consistent high quality level, which is very much appreciated by our customers and their discerning commercial consumers – the branded goods industry sector” Christiansen states.

Based on the continuing trend of multicolour, high-quality printed packaging, Christiansen plans to install another high-performance machine in Ilsenburg in the short term. In the long run, an addition to capacity in other European countries could be possible with the aim of meeting the increasing demand of the corrugated cardboard industry in flexo-preprint, according to the requirements of the market.

With over 60 years’ growing all-round experience in the field of packaging and PoS-solutions across several industries, THIMM enriches the technology portfolio with two eight-colour Conprinta-flexographic printing machines. These machines, based on a unique Belt-printing system, stand for the highest flexibility and quality. Order changes are carried out with minimal time and effort. Short set-up-times guarantee profitable production, even for small orders. Also unique is the fact that formats can be printed, on a continuously-adjustable basis, in dimensions of up to 2.45 by 4.55 metres.

THIMM produces around 150 million square metres of pre-printed paper per year, 20% of which is already being supplied to third parties by this pioneer in the field of reel fed preprint: a clearly upward trend. 80% of the pre-printed paper is processed into corrugated packaging and displays by the company itself. But the family-run concern already buys volumes through external procurement and is therefore currently the biggest customer of Christiansen Print. ”The co-operation with this innovative company is a strategically important step for us“, Schliep explains. ”We are considerably improving the support offered to our preprint-customers. At the same time, our respective technologies complement each other perfectly, and the know-how-transfer between our companies promises high future potential. We are looking forward to highly-productive co-operation with Lars Christiansen and his team.”