Flint Group Announces Sale of XSYS Division to Lone Star affiliate

• Divestiture allows Flint Group to strategically focus and invest further in its market leading packaging inks and digital printing businesses, in addition to strengthening its balance sheet
• Flint Group COO Steve Dryden will become new CEO as Antoine Fady takes on CEO position for XSYS

Flint Group announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its XSYS division (“XSYS”), which specializes in the development and supply of printing plates, sleeves and adapters, and pre-press equipment to the packaging industry, to an affiliate of Lone Star Funds, a global private equity firm (“Lone Star”). The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Upon closing, the XSYS management team will be led by Antoine Fady as Chief Executive Officer, Dagmar Schmidt as Chief Operating Officer, and Martin Sauer as Chief Financial Officer. Steve Dryden will succeed Mr. Fady as CEO of the Flint Group.

“The carve-out we are announcing today represents the next logical step for Flint Group and XSYS,” Mr. Fady said. “It will further enable the XSYS business to advance as a standalone, best in class, full solutions provider to the flexographic and letterpress pre-press industries, with tailor-made solutions developed for each market segment and customer type. We look forward to working with Lone Star, whose experience and track record will be of great benefit as we move XSYS forward in this next phase.”

“With this transaction, we will create two dedicated management teams with increased strategic and operational focus,” said Steve Dryden, newly elected Flint Group CEO.  “Flint Group becomes positioned to further invest in the structurally growing segments of paper and board, flexible packaging and labels, serviced with our conventional and digital printing consumables. This successful strategy – centred around product and service innovation — enables Flint to grow with customers that value our colour proposition by helping them to standardise and reduce their costs.”

“We look forward to working with XSYS, a leading global provider of printing solutions,” said Donald Quintin, President, Lone Star Opportunity Funds. “We recognize not only the resilience of the XSYS business and the diversity of its offerings, but its growth prospects as well. We appreciate the value that XSYS provides its many customers, and have great confidence in the management team’s commitment to realizing XSYS’s potential in the years ahead.”

Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE and J.P. Morgan acted as financial advisor and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP acted as legal advisor to Flint Group. Lone Star was advised by Perella Weinberg Partners and Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

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About Flint Group

Flint Group is dedicated to serving the global printing and packaging industry. The company develops, manufactures and markets an extensive portfolio of printing consumables and printing equipment, including: a vast range of conventional and energy curable inks and coatings for most offset, flexographic and gravure applications; pressroom chemicals, printing blankets and sleeves for offset printing; photopolymer printing plates and sleeves, plate-making equipment and flexographic sleeve systems; pigments and additives for use in inks and other colourant applications; Flint Group also designs, develops and delivers web-fed digital colour presses for labels and packaging applications, document printing, as well as commercial printing as well as platemaking equipment for the newspaper industry and computer-to-plate (CtP) solutions for the commercial printing market; With a strong customer focus, unmatched service and support, and superior products, Flint Group strives to provide exceptional value, consistent quality and continuous innovation to customers around the world. Headquartered in Luxembourg, Flint Group employs some 6200 people. Revenues for 2020 were €1.7 billion. On a worldwide basis, the company is the number one or number two supplier in every major market segment it serves. For more information, please visit www.flintgrp.com.

About XSYS

Formed in January 2021, XSYS has been designed to bring more brilliance into the packaging industry – into the lives of its customers and colleagues – using brilliant products and services for brilliant print results and business success. It combines under one umbrella such well-known flexographic and letterpress brands as nyloflex®, Xpress, nyloprint®, nylosolv®, rotec®, FlexoExpert, ThermoFlexX, Catena, TFxX and Woodpecker, to provide a complete flexographic and letterpress prepress solution.

Headquartered in Germany, XSYS operates from more than 37 locations around the world and is one of the largest global suppliers offering both flexographic and letterpress prepress solutions, including plates, sleeves, processors, workflow solutions and expert professional services designed to help these industries move forward with increasing innovation, improved productivity and profitability and a reduced environmental footprint.

About Lone Star

Lone Star is a leading private equity firm advising funds that invest globally in real estate, equity, credit and other financial assets. Since the establishment of its first fund in 1995, Lone Star has organized 21 private equity funds with aggregate capital commitments totaling approximately $85 billion. The firm organizes its funds in three series: the Commercial Real Estate Fund series; the Opportunity Fund series; and the U.S. Residential Mortgage Fund series. Lone Star invests on behalf of its limited partners, which include institutional investors such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, as well as foundations and endowments that support medical research, higher education, and other philanthropic causes. For more information regarding Lone Star Funds, go to www.lonestarfunds.com.