Two sectional upgrades of its 25-year-old K&B Commander press will secure production at Pressedruck Potsdam.

Acquired just over a year ago by managing director Bengt Föbker, the company has signed with partners QI Press Controls & EAE for a comprehensive retrofit of section F50 of the German-built press, aimed at increasing reliability and improving quality.

Föbker (56) bought out previous owners Märkische Verlags-und-Druck and Kieler Zeitung Verwaltungs in December 2023, and has a ten-year contract to print Tagesspiegel and other work.

QI’s IDS-3D density and integrated colour register and mRC-3D cut-off register controls are to be installed – with ribbon stitchers integrated – and EAE will retrofit press and drive controls. Upgrades of the F50 section will take place without affecting webs running from section 40 to folder F50.

And not only do the two companies have a long-standing relationship, but importantly to Föbker, they both speak German. He says the choice of QIPC-EAE was an obvious one: “We not only expect improvements in our production processes but also excellent service in our native language.”

He says the investment ensures the level of quality that customers such as Tagesspiegel, expect.

The system upgrade includes a K&B Commander section with EAE controls built in 2000, while a modular expansion of a second Commander section prepares the company for further growth and long-term production reliability.

In a statement about the acquisition in December 2023, Bengt Föbker said the print centre would produce Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung, and partial editions of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Handelsblatt and Märkische Oderzeitung, as well as various advertising papers.

The whole of the Tagesspiegel run will move to PDP from the beginning of 2026, “at the latest”, with the printing business, “no longer the business focus” of what has become an increasingly digital media company.

PDP has a staff of about 70, printing regional and national daily newspapers in Nordic and Rhenish print formats.

Pictured: PDP’s Bengt Föbker (PDP), Antonio Katzenmayer (centre), with EAE’s Heiko Heidinger and Bernhard Schmiedeberg (left), and Conrad Borchert (right).