Media giant Bertelsmann has posted record sales, but it’s been a tough year for its printing division.

The Germany-headquartered group’s businesses include publisher Penguin Random House, music business BMG and entertainment company RTL. 

For calendar year 2022 the overall group posted sales up 8.3% to €20.2bn (£17.75bn), a new all-time high, while operating EBITDA was “stable”, down 1.5% at €3.2bn. 

However, the Bertelsmann Printing Group (BPG) division had a tough year, and “strong declines” at its Prinovis gravure printing sites resulted in the decision to exit gravure printing completely – its Dresden site was closed at the end of last year, Prinovis in Liverpool will shut down in three months’ time at the end of June, and its Ahrensburg factory in Germany is being wound down with closure scheduled for 31 January 2024. 

Sales at the division increased by 9.8% to €1.45bn, mainly through passing on paper price rises and other cost increases. But steeply rising prices for energy, paper and other production materials also resulted in declining demand “across almost all areas”.

BPG operating EBITA fell by 57%, and slumped from €60m to just €26m.

BPG also includes book printer GGP which has operations in Germany and the USA, web offset and book printer Mohn Media, a number of direct marketing businesses, and storage media specialist Sonopress.

“A comprehensive investment program for the book printing business aims to significantly improve productivity in the future and effectively expand capacity for publishing customers in the United States,” Bertelsmann stated. 

It said that at BPG’s marketing services business “the positive trend of previous years continued”.

“The replication and packaging specialists at Bertelsmann Printing Group held their own in a market that continued to decline, although they registered declining volumes and earnings due to market conditions. By contrast, the business with sustainable packaging solutions for the food industry and the vinyl services business were further expanded.”

Just under 62% of BPG sales come from Germany where sales were €870m, nearly 13% from the USA, 11.7% from other European countries, 7.4% from the UK, with the remaining 1.2% from other countries. 

BPG also made a €10m impairment charge attributable to the goodwill at Mohn Media Group, which is now fully written off.

Mohn Media also introduced an AI-based system that automatically identifies paper web breaks “ thereby increasing the recourse rate”.