- **Manugraph India is the largest manufacturer of single-width web-offset printing presses in India** - the machines that print newspapers - and the dominant player in the niche 4-page press market, where it holds an estimated 60% share. Founded in 1972 and operating from its Kolhapur plant since 1973, the company built its position by supplying high-volume, low-cost-per-copy presses to nearly every major Indian publication house and to publishers across South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the CIS. Its recurring approach has been to adapt a single core manufacturing platform to adjacent opportunities - first newspaper presses, then flexo presses for packaging, then contract precision engineering - while steadily shrinking its cost base to match a print industry under digital pressure. # Business segments Three engines built on one factory floor - a newspaper-press cash cow under structural decline, a packaging-press bet that brought European technology to India, and a contract-manufacturing sideline that fills the shop with third-party work - all reported as a single Engineering segment. ## 1. Web-offset newspaper presses: the legacy machine that still prints the morning paper **Manugraph is the largest maker of these presses in India and the leader in the 4-page niche, with machines installed in nearly every major Indian publication house and in export markets from Africa to Japan.** - **Speed is the selling point** - its presses run from 25,000 to 85,000 copies per hour, and offset technology remains the cheapest way to print long runs, which is why government institutions and educational bodies still use it for bulletins and exam papers. - **Paid mostly upfront** - the company takes a significant advance payment on each machine and has no history of significant customer defaults; international deals are backed by letters of credit from reputable banks, so credit risk is contained. - **Revenue recognised in two stages** - for composite contracts, the machine sale and installation are bundled; for recoverable contracts, installation is charged separately and booked as the work progresses, with no financing element built into the price. - **An in-house engineering backbone** - over 50 R&D engineers, a government-recognised lab, and a dedicated software department let the company customise presslines to customer specs, from a 13-head variable-data-printing system for bar-coding to CE-compliant upgrades for the European market. - **A shrinking customer base** - digital media has eroded newspaper advertising revenue and capex, and import duty on newsprint raises publishers’ costs; regional-language papers and growing literacy provide a partial floor, but the structural trend is down. ## 2. MANUFLEX flexo presses: the packaging play built on Italian technology **An 8-colour gearless Central Impression flexo press - the first of its kind made in India - aimed at a packaging market that was growing 15-20% a year when the company entered it.** - **European design, Indian manufacturing** - developed through a collaboration with Carraro SRL of Italy, the MANUFLEX press brought gearless CI flexo technology to India, giving local converters an alternative to solvent-based gravure printing with eco-friendly advantages. - **Built for thin films** - R&D work has focused on mechanical modifications and electronic parameterization to run ultrathin breathable and non-breathable film, the kind used in modern flexible packaging. - **A bet on a printer shift** - the product was designed for a moment when printers and converters were moving from offset and gravure toward flexography, which handles substrates more efficiently; the collaboration has since ended, with the company stating it has no foreign collaboration as of FY23. ## 3. Contract manufacturing: filling the shop floor with third-party work **Precision engineering components made for heavy-industry vendors on a job-work basis, using the same plant and skills that build printing presses.** - **A supplementary engine** - the company explicitly treats this as a way to supplement its core press business, studying and costing overseas OEM components for contract manufacturing at its Kolhapur plant. - **Same infrastructure, different customer** - the R&D centre actively looks for engineering products that need similar manufacturing capabilities, so the fixed-cost base of the factory is spread across more work. # Manufacturing backbone **One plant, one workforce, and a deliberate cost-shrinking programme that has cut permanent employees from 702 to 197 in five years.** - **A single surviving unit** - the Kolhapur facility once had two units; Unit-2 at Kadoli had no production after April 2019 and was closed with government approval in September 2020, with all orders consolidated into Unit-1 at Shiroli. - **Workforce reset** - in FY25, consent terms with the employees’ union reduced workmen from 257 to 127, with 124 retired employees and 130 over-55 workers compulsorily retired, saving roughly Rs. 55 lakhs per month from October 2024. - **Design-to-floor integration** - Computer Aided Design software, an ERP system, and in-house software development connect engineering to production, while energy-saving measures include LED replacement throughout the plant and an effluent treatment unit that recycles 3 cubic metres of water a day for gardening. # Group structure and partners **A standalone Indian public company with no subsidiaries, no joint ventures, and a clean-up of legacy entities now complete.** - **No subsidiaries remain** - the US subsidiary, Manugraph Americas Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017 and was liquidated in November 2022 with a gain of Rs. 0.02 crore; the dormant Indian subsidiary Constrad Agencies was merged into the parent in 2019. - **Promoter-group entities absorbed** - Manu Enterprises Limited and Santsu Finance and Investment Private Limited, both promoter-group companies, were merged into Manugraph India via a scheme with an appointed date of April 1, 2018, and an effective date of October 17, 2019. - **Promoters hold 57.67%** - the founding Shah family remains firmly in control, with the founder’s sons serving as Chairman & Managing Director and Vice Chairman & Managing Director. - **No foreign collaboration now** - the Carraro partnership that produced the MANUFLEX press has ended, and the company reported no foreign collaboration as of FY23.