Landa Digital Printing Gets Reprieve from Israeli Court to Find Buyer or New Investor

Benny Landa

Benny Landa has climbed many mountains in his decades-long dream to reinvent the printing process, but it appears he will need a new financial investment lifeline to continue the sale of Nanographic printing technology under his watch or, perhaps more likely, find a competitive digital printing press manufacturer to buy Rehovot, Israel-based Landa Digital Printing outright.

After Landa Digital Printing recently sought bankruptcy protection for being unable to service approximately $516 million in debt, Israeli technology news site CTech, published by Calcalist, reported on July 10 that the Israeli Central District Court has given Benny Landa until the end of August to find a possible buyer or fresh investor to craft a potential settlement with its secured creditors. The court also ruled Benny Landa would retain control during Landa Digital Printing’s restructuring attempts, rather than appointing a court-ordered trustee to take control.

Its biggest secured creditors, holding loan and equity stakes, are German billionaire Susanne Klatten and the Winder investment arm of Sweden’s Rausing family. Said to be the richest woman in Germany, Klatten also holds a large stake in automaker BMW, and owns specialty chemical company Altana AG and industrial investment firm SKion, among other holdings. The Rausing family is best known for its Swiss-based Tetra Pak food packaging giant, which was founded by Ruben Rausing.

According to CTech, more than $1.3 billion has been invested in Landa Digital Printing since its inception. Benny Landa remains the company’s largest shareholder with a 36.7% ownership stake, followed by Altana (28.9%), SKion (16.4%), Winder (10%), Landa Labs (4.6%), and the company’s employees (3.1%).

Will Landa Sell to HP, Again?

Benny Landa personally invested $220 million to launch the company, largely by using some of the proceeds of the sale of Indigo to HP. As announced during the opening day of the PRINT ‘01 trade show in Chicago, Landa sold Indigo to HP in 2001 for approximately $882 million in HP stock and cash.

Fast forward to today, it is perhaps fortuitous that HP has been rumored to be the leading candidate to acquire Landa Digital Printing, which would provide HP with a B1-format (41”) sheetfed inkjet printing press offering. Combining water-based NanoInk, digital inkjet jetting technology, and a specially-designed transfer blanket (more akin to image transfer within the offset printing process) to enable output speeds up to 11,200 sheets/hr., Landa Nanographic sheetfed digital presses could conceivably complement HP’s Indigo Liquid Electrophotography (LEP) sheetfed and web press lineup that use HP ElectroInks, as well as its HP PageWide family of inkjet web presses.

Other potential suitors for Landa Digital Printing, as named in various press reports, include Canon, Agfa, Fujifilm, Epson, Koenig & Bauer, and even Xerox. (Xerox, however, seems an unlikely suitor, given its July 1, 2025, $1.5 billion acquisition of Lexmark International.)

Causes for Landa Digital Printing’s Struggles

Several factors have led to Landa Digital Printing’s financial woes. Among them have been global economic uncertainties that have impacted CapEx investments by print providers; the Israeli war in Gaza, which has disrupted manufacturing processes, caused supply chain shortages; and required military reserve callups for several Landa  employees; more costly shipping rates partly fueled by terrorism-led disruptions in the Suez Canal; and the relatively slim margins for the Landa presses themselves — given the costs of years of R&D investments and delays in bringing saleable, production models to market; Landa’s costs to secure numerous patents; and the comparatively high employee wage structures in Israel.

The Gaza conflict was also partly blamed for Susanne Klatten— who collectively owns a 45% stake in Landa Digital Printing — opting to cease any additional funding. Some reports note that she has handed over the investment strategy decisions to her children, who want to distance their holdings away from the optics of supporting a company based in a current war-torn country.

Other Companies in Portfolio Are Also Suffering

Landa Digital Printing is only one of Benny Landa’s holdings facing financial distress largely brought on by the Gaza conflict, according to Israeli business daily website, Globes. Lab-grown diamond manufacturer Lusix was recently sold for $4 million — despite raising $150 million in financing — due to the war combined with intense competition from lab-grown diamond manufacturers in India. Highcon, which manufactures digital diecutters for folding cartons and corrugated applications, has filed for bankruptcy protection. And Globes indicated that clean fuel energy manufacturer GenCell has had to downsize its operations following a more than 95% drop in valuation.

In January 2024, Landa announced it was building a NanoInk manufacturing plant in the Midwest to better serve its North American customer base. Despite a worldwide installed base of more than 50 presses, Landa reported that more than 20% of them had plans to order additional presses. As examples, Morton Grove, Illinois-based Quantum Group, led by Cheryl Kahanec, has installed two Landa presses, as has Hudson Printing, led by Paul Hudson, in Salt Lake City.

drupa Doesn’t Deliver Expected Sales

Celebrating the ribbon cutting announcing the multiple Landa press sale to Cimpress at drupa 2024, from the left, were Gil Oron, CEO, Landa; Robert Keane, CEO and chair, Cimpress; Benny Landa, founder, Landa; and Sharon Cohen, CBO, Landa.

Landa Digital Printing had high hopes that drupa 2024, in Dusseldorf, Germany, would prove to be a watershed event for the company, given Landa’s launch of its higher-speed S11 (straight) and S11P (perfecting) models. Cimpress (Vistaprint) founder and CEO Robert Keane was even on hand at drupa to announce that Cimpress planned to install four Landa S11P presses, with the intention to acquire even more at a later date. Even so, Globes reported Landa Digital Printing only sold 11 presses at drupa, despite budgeting for the sale of 16 presses.

It will be interesting to see how the Landa Digital Printing saga unfolds in the coming months. Known for his charisma, serial entrepreneurship, and strong sense of showmanship, the prospect of holding on to the company he long envisioned will require Benny Landa to muster all of those traits — and likely much more.