St Gallen, 22 December 2017 – After 15 years at the helm of the Gallus Group, Klaus Bachstein has made the decision to leave the company for pastures new. Bachstein joined Gallus Ferd. Rueesch AG as director of marketing, Business Development and Screen Printing Business on 1 October 1995, subsequently also taking over responsibility for service and sales. In June 2002, he took over the position of CEO of the Gallus Group.
This phase saw many important developments:The introduction of the Gallus RCS, the first completely servo-driven label printing press with maximum process flexibility, which set a new industry benchmark for productivity; The use of technical granite as the core module for the printing and converting units in the Gallus ECS 340, which went on to become the top-selling label printing press in its class; The development and introduction of the Gallus Labelmaster, a fully scalable machine platform with maximum configuration flexibility for the label printer to cover almost every customer requirement; The development and introduction of the Gallus Labelfire, the first industrial digital label printing press with upstream and downstream finishing steps, which handles all process steps from the roll to the fully finished and die-cut label in one production cycle; the development of the screen printing plate business through new electroplating and coating processes for the production of printing plates for a wide range of applications in the label business and for functional printing; and, the development of lean methods in the development and production of label printing presses.
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen which already owned 30% of the Gallus Group became the majority owner and took over management control in mid-2014 while Ferdinand Reuesch became the largest individual shareholder of Heidelberg at about 9% shareholding. Business units and functions with synergy potential in the Heidelberg Group have been integrated since then, while still maintaining the Gallus brand. This includes market development by Heidelberg’s sales and service organizations, the development and production of joint technology platforms such as the inkjet unit and the software of the Gallus Labelfire’s digital printing unit, and the use of Heidelberg service platforms to improve Gallus’ services.
The continued corporate development of Gallus as part of the Heidelberg Group will be headed up by Christof Naier from January 2018 onwards. Christof Naier joined Gallus in July 2012, first as head of Sales, Marketing, and Service Label Business, and since July 2017 as general manager Label Business. He will continue to rigorously implement the growth strategy for Gallus initiated three years ago and work at full throttle to drive the expansion of the digital business. The administrative board of Gallus Holding said, “We thank Klaus Bachstein for his contributions to the development of the company and wish him every success in his future endeavors.”
