EFI has announced that its productivity software division, responsible for the development and support of its MIS/ERP Productivity Suites, has been sold to an affiliate of Symphony Technology Group, which will operate it as eProductivity Software, leaving EFI to focus its printer and Fiery front-end business on ‘high value’ digital imaging applications including industrial inkjet.

Symphony Technology Group (STG) is described as ‘a private equity partner to market-leading companies in software, data and analytics’ and the newly-independent eProductivity Software (EPS) will be headed by Gaby Matsliach, formerly EFI’s general manager for productivity software. The new entity will continue to focus on ‘mission-critical’ ERP (enterprise resource planning) offerings for the print and packaging sectors, with STG’s backing.

Mr Matsliach commented, ‘This strategic step in becoming an independent company enables us to bring greater value to our customers, as well as the packaging and print industries overall, by extending our collaboration with key industry technology players. We will of course continue to collaborate closely with our friends at EFI. In addition, we will accelerate investments in our technology advancements and modernisation, in our level of partnership with customers, and in driving global organic and inorganic growth.

‘Through this process, STG took the time to deeply understand the industries we serve and got excited about our space, customers and market position. We were impressed by their strong emphasis on growth through innovation and a highly customer-centric approach and are looking forward to implementing together that future vision,’ he added.

EPS inherits a customer base of over 4000 mid-market and enterprise customers around the world, across a broad cross-section of print and packaging specialities. Its immediate offering is based on the various MIS acquisitions made by EFI over the last decade and more, from Pace Systems in 2008, Radius in 2010 and more recently, UK-based MIS developers Technique (2012) and Shuttleworth (2015). Collectively they have been marketed and sold as various Productivity Suites, collections of tested end-to-end workflow solutions aimed at specific print operations and applications, since 2015.

EFI says this move will result in it ‘prioritising technology investments’ in its remaining inkjet and Fiery DFE businesses to capitalise on opportunities in the sectors it already serves, as well as to address related areas that are only now beginning the analogue-to-digital print/imaging transition.

EFI CEO and executive chairman Jeff Jacobson said, ‘We have never been more excited about the opportunity in the industrial inkjet markets and our ability to leverage Fiery, the leading digital front end (DFE) technology for digital colour printing, to continue to drive the analogue-to-digital transformation in all high-value segments of imaging – while increasingly serving new adjacencies including e-commerce, direct-to-garment, and other rapidly growing segments. We are making significant investments to continue to be the clear leader in the packaging and corrugated, display graphics, textile, and building materials/décor markets.’

The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. EFI has been privately held since its acquisition by an affiliate of Siris Capital in 2019, in a deal that valued the company at around US $1.7 billion; the last publicly declared revenue figure, for 2018, was just over $1 billion. 

 

Digital Printer will be attending the 2022 EFI Connect event in Las Vegas later in January and will report further from there.