07.21.21
Sonnenstraße 1
85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Germany
Phone: +49 89 9003 0
Fax: +49 89 9003 222
www.hubergroup.com
Sales: $779 million (€644 million).
Major Products: hubergroup is offering customized, high-quality services and technologies around printing inks as well as print-related products for commercial, newspaper, packaging and security printing. Main products include sheetfed, coldset and heatset offset inks; solvent-based gravure inks for packaging; water- and solvent-based flexo inks for packaging; UV offset and flexo inks; security inks; screen inks; fountain solutions, varnishes and transfer inks.
In the Chemicals Division, hubergroup manufactures UV-curable oligomers, polyurethane resins, laminating adhesives (2K PU systems), modified rosin resins, PVB, ketone resins and polyamides as well as pigment concentrates, alkali blue and adhesion promoters.
Key Personnel: Executive Board MHM Holding GmbH: Heiner Klokkers, chairman of the board; Taner Bicer, president Chemicals Division; Ashwani Bhardwaj, president RBU Asia/Pacific; Dr. Dirk Aulbert, president Print Solutions Division; Britta Hübner, CFO and chief transformation officer.
Number of Employees: 3,500 worldwide.
Comments: With $779 million in sales in 2020, hubergroup is one of the leading global ink manufacturers, and the company took major steps to bring its expertise into chemicals with the launch of its new Chemicals Division in 2020.
“The highlight for hubergroup was, of course, the launch of our Chemicals Division in July 2020,” Heiner Klokkers, chairman of the board for MHM Holding GmbH, said. “This new division produces and markets raw materials such as pigments, resins, and additives. It primarily aims at the printing and packaging industry, the paint and coatings industry, and at chemical companies. Our Chemicals Division perfectly complements our Print Solutions Division, which produces and sells printing inks and aids for packaging and commercial printing.”
Klokkers said that COVID-19 affected the company in a variety of ways, in particular raw materials.
“COVID-19 had a major impact, especially on the commercial printing market, which heavily declined due to lockdowns,” he noted. “Business in the packaging market was stable. However, there were strong disruptions in the overall supply chain, which had effects on all markets. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are unfortunately still being felt. We are fortunate to be able to supply our customers, but this goes along with a great effort and therefore also with massive cost increases. An improvement of the situation is currently not in sight.”
Hubergroup is a leader in developing sustainable solutions, and the company continued to make significant strides.
“Sustainability is the central issue for us as well as for our customers,” Klokkers observed. “Thanks to intensive research and development work, we were able to announce several success stories in this area over the past 12 months. For example, we now offer a complete Cradle to Cradle Material Health Gold certified portfolio for commercial and packaging offset printing and our UV inks received deinking certificates.
“Another highlight is the launch of our HYDRO-X GA Water Barrier Varnish,” he added. “The water-based varnish protects against water and, thereby, replaces a polyethylene (PE) film lamination as water barrier. As a result, it enables cost-effective and eco-friendly mono-material paper packaging as an alternative to laminate structure packaging. Moreover, we have teamed up with other companies of the printed films value chain in an initiative called PrintCYC to investigate the influence of printing inks on the mechanical recycling of packaging films. One of our findings so far is that polyurethane (PU) based inks such as our Gecko Platinum series can be processed to a high quality recyclate similar to virgin material.”
So far, 2021 has seen good things for hubergroup, although there are still concerns.
“We started the year quite well, but the lockdowns are still having an impact,” Klokkers reported. “The situation in India is currently causing us the most concern. We hope that the situation will now ease very soon here as well. The tight commodity situation will continue to be a major challenge this year. With the progress in vaccination, we expect the overall situation to improve and are already seeing first enhancements in North America and Europe.”
85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Germany
Phone: +49 89 9003 0
Fax: +49 89 9003 222
www.hubergroup.com
Sales: $779 million (€644 million).
Major Products: hubergroup is offering customized, high-quality services and technologies around printing inks as well as print-related products for commercial, newspaper, packaging and security printing. Main products include sheetfed, coldset and heatset offset inks; solvent-based gravure inks for packaging; water- and solvent-based flexo inks for packaging; UV offset and flexo inks; security inks; screen inks; fountain solutions, varnishes and transfer inks.
In the Chemicals Division, hubergroup manufactures UV-curable oligomers, polyurethane resins, laminating adhesives (2K PU systems), modified rosin resins, PVB, ketone resins and polyamides as well as pigment concentrates, alkali blue and adhesion promoters.
Key Personnel: Executive Board MHM Holding GmbH: Heiner Klokkers, chairman of the board; Taner Bicer, president Chemicals Division; Ashwani Bhardwaj, president RBU Asia/Pacific; Dr. Dirk Aulbert, president Print Solutions Division; Britta Hübner, CFO and chief transformation officer.
Number of Employees: 3,500 worldwide.
Comments: With $779 million in sales in 2020, hubergroup is one of the leading global ink manufacturers, and the company took major steps to bring its expertise into chemicals with the launch of its new Chemicals Division in 2020.
“The highlight for hubergroup was, of course, the launch of our Chemicals Division in July 2020,” Heiner Klokkers, chairman of the board for MHM Holding GmbH, said. “This new division produces and markets raw materials such as pigments, resins, and additives. It primarily aims at the printing and packaging industry, the paint and coatings industry, and at chemical companies. Our Chemicals Division perfectly complements our Print Solutions Division, which produces and sells printing inks and aids for packaging and commercial printing.”
Klokkers said that COVID-19 affected the company in a variety of ways, in particular raw materials.
“COVID-19 had a major impact, especially on the commercial printing market, which heavily declined due to lockdowns,” he noted. “Business in the packaging market was stable. However, there were strong disruptions in the overall supply chain, which had effects on all markets. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are unfortunately still being felt. We are fortunate to be able to supply our customers, but this goes along with a great effort and therefore also with massive cost increases. An improvement of the situation is currently not in sight.”
Hubergroup is a leader in developing sustainable solutions, and the company continued to make significant strides.
“Sustainability is the central issue for us as well as for our customers,” Klokkers observed. “Thanks to intensive research and development work, we were able to announce several success stories in this area over the past 12 months. For example, we now offer a complete Cradle to Cradle Material Health Gold certified portfolio for commercial and packaging offset printing and our UV inks received deinking certificates.
“Another highlight is the launch of our HYDRO-X GA Water Barrier Varnish,” he added. “The water-based varnish protects against water and, thereby, replaces a polyethylene (PE) film lamination as water barrier. As a result, it enables cost-effective and eco-friendly mono-material paper packaging as an alternative to laminate structure packaging. Moreover, we have teamed up with other companies of the printed films value chain in an initiative called PrintCYC to investigate the influence of printing inks on the mechanical recycling of packaging films. One of our findings so far is that polyurethane (PU) based inks such as our Gecko Platinum series can be processed to a high quality recyclate similar to virgin material.”
So far, 2021 has seen good things for hubergroup, although there are still concerns.
“We started the year quite well, but the lockdowns are still having an impact,” Klokkers reported. “The situation in India is currently causing us the most concern. We hope that the situation will now ease very soon here as well. The tight commodity situation will continue to be a major challenge this year. With the progress in vaccination, we expect the overall situation to improve and are already seeing first enhancements in North America and Europe.”
