Private equity group Aurelius has announced the successful completion of the acquisition of Agfa Offset Solutions from the Agfa-Gevaert Group for €92 million.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s outgoing Director, Len Olijar called 2022 an exciting year on many fronts in his introduction to the agency’s Annual Report, citing progress in a number of areas, including the goal of upgrading its facilities.

De La Rue has recently provided a trading update, which indicates both a small (mid-single digit percentage) drop in profitability below market expectations (of £30-33 million) for 2022/23 but an uncertain outlook for 2023/24, with a potentially sharp reduction in profits. The share price fell 20% on the news.

Koenig & Bauer has reported that, based on its preliminary and as yet unaudited figures, group EBIT for 2022 has exceeded its own forecast, as well as market expectations. This was in spite of a challenging environment characterised by supply chain constraints and an associated increase in material and energy costs, and a loss in one of its main divisions – the Digital and Webfed segment.

Giesecke+Devrient has described 2022 as having a challenging business environment but one in which it has achieved strong results. The challenges have included rising energy, raw material and logistic costs, worldwide inflation, supply chain challenges, particularly for chips, and the impact of the war in Ukraine.

Crane NXT has announced the completion of its separation from Crane Co., the US-based industrial products and processes conglomerate, and its launch as an independent, publicly traded company.

META Materials Inc, a developer of high performance functional materials and nanocomposites which acquired security feature specialist Nanotech Security Corp in 2021, has announced its results for 2022, and raised concerns about its future viability unless additional funding can be secured.

Renowned counterfeit expert Kerre Corbin has set up Kerrency Ltd – a new independent consultancy for the banknote industry to provide guidance and training to central banks, police agencies, commercial banks and security industry companies on counterfeiting issues.

In the January issue of Currency News™, we covered the closure of Cash Processing Solution (CPS), the second supplier of high-speed sorting systems after Giesecke+Devrient, and the creation of a series of new entities to continue with the profitable software and services side of the business.

Voith Group includes Voith Paper, which is well known in the banknote paper making world as the manufacturer of paper machines. In its 2022 Sustainability Report it gives details of its ‘Papermaking for Life’ programme designed to contribute to more sustainable paper production.