Editor’s Note: The sixth-largest ink manufacturer in the world, hubergroup was acquired by a consortium between MAVCO Investments, a private investment vehicle belonging to select members of the Murugappa family, and funds managed by Avenue Capital Group, a global investment firm. The sale was completed in April 2025. hubergroup employs more than 3,000 people in nearly 30 countries and generated annual sales of around €743 million in 2024. Premal A. Desai, hubergroup’s new CEO, discusses the company’s opportunities going forward.

Ink World: How long have you been at hubergroup, and previous to that, what have been some of the highlights of your career?

Premal A. Desai: Over the last 30 years before joining hubergroup, I have been fortunate to be part of the leadership teams at Boston Consulting Group and thyssenkrupp. I joined hubergroup in summer 2024 in the middle of a transformation – and it has been an exciting journey ever since. We have successfully navigated the company through an intensive M&A process and glad to say we have emerged much stronger despite challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical factors.

Ink World: What led to the decisions for hubergroup to look for new ownership, and for MAVCO Investments and Avenue Capital to acquire hubergroup?

Premal A. Desai: hubergroup’s previous ownership was going through a difficult financial situation, as is well known in the market. Fortunately, the company has been taken over by global and ambitious new owners – MAVCO Investments, a private company owned by select members of the Murugappa family based out of India, and Avenue Capital Group, a US based Private Equity fund, via their consortium MAVNU. Our new owners are committed to focus on delivering high quality products and service to our partners across all key international market segments across the globe.

Ink World: What markets will hubergroup be concentrating on?

Premal A. Desai: Our focus is on delivering outstanding value to our customers globally in over 50 countries via our innovative products and customer centricity.

In our Print Solutions business, this includes the flexible packaging market, where we are well positioned with our future-oriented UV flexo series iray, the sustainable water-based HYDRO-X portfolio, and our high-performance solvent-based Gecko products. By the way, we will be sharing exciting updates for our NC-free liquid inks portfolio soon. At the same time, sustainable UV and conventional offset products for packaging will continue to be a focus as well. We are stepping up our innovation and sustainability strategies to better serve our customers. Geographically speaking, we will intensify our efforts in both our core market of Europe as well as high growth markets in Asia/Africa and the Americas.

Ink World: What do you see as hubergroup’s strengths, such as its vertical integration and its people, and how can these strengths be leveraged toward future growth?

Premal A. Desai: While our vertical integration and comprehensive solutions are certainly key advantages of hubergroup, I believe our true strength lies in our people. It is their passion, expertise, creativity, and customer-focused mindset that distinguish us in the market.

Our customers value not just our high-quality products, but also our dedicated service approach and global service network – they know we bring extensive knowledge and are always ready to support them. And we continuously strive to make our customer offerings better and with our large intercontinental R&D and Innovation team, our well equipped application and analytics labs, and our proficient production capabilities. This combination is what makes hubergroup unique and will become even more critical in the future, especially as the markets remain challenging and regulations continue to evolve.

Ink World: How is the new ownership helping to grow hubergroup’s presence and business opportunities?

Premal A. Desai: The new ownership by MAVNU provides a strong foundation for accelerating our development and leveraging our global presence through long-term orientation, strategic investments and targeted realignment.

With MAVNU’s strategic vision, experience in Asia and Americas, and operational expertise, we are sharpening our focus on global customer reach and long-term value creation, enabling us to pursue new business opportunities with greater agility. This partnership marks the start of an ambitious new era for hubergroup. For all our customers and partners this means substantial long-term commitment and reliability.

Ink World: What are your thoughts as to hubergroup’s potential for development over say, the next five years?

Premal A. Desai: I am highly confident in our ability to deliver substantial value in all our segments. Yet we have to acknowledge navigating through 2025, that especially Europe finds itself in a critical economic condition. The region continues to face a complex mix of challenges—sluggish growth, paired with increasing geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties.

Real GDP growth rates across many European countries are projected to remain at best modest. Inflation rates, while gradually easing, were very high after COVID and remain volatile across several sectors due to structural factors such as high energy prices, rigid labor markets, and ambiguous fiscal policies in a number of countries.

In light of these aspects, we have already undertaken several measures to ensure business sustainability and to enable investment into quality, innovation, and service. The downsizing and relocation plan of our Celle site in Germany since 2023 reflects such a restructuring effort paired with investments into a new site. We are also investing into a state-of-the-art facility in Poland, which is expected to come up over the coming years. And we continuously invest into our Italian and Indian production sites to be able to serve our customers better.

However, we see severe volatility across the entire supply chain – the sudden spike in cost of nitrocellulose is just an example. Energy costs have gone up substantially in Europe. Supply chain disruptions and increases in freight costs have also added complexity and expenses. Our customers have been our true partners so far to help us tide over such market pressures and we count on their support in these challenging times to share the cost burden.

I hope that the European policy makers– who have been discussing long about the unfavorable competitive conditions for manufacturing industries, including specialty chemicals throughout the region – will find ways to make Europe more competitive in order to maintain its core strengths of innovation and customer value. Our energy costs, personnel expenses and bureaucratic conditions have to improve substantially.

Ink World: Is there anything you would like to add?

Premal A. Desai: We have strengthened our Executive Team, together with my colleagues Anupam Jain, Dr. Arup Basu, Carsten Zölzer and Taner Bicer. hubergroup has a management team with the expertise and determination to lead the company into a successful future.

At the same time, we have empowered our country managing directors to take full ownership of local business, so that our customers receive the best hubergroup product and service support, so please reach out anytime and anywhere.

As we celebrate 260 years of hubergroup and now six months into our new era, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to our customers, whose loyalty, feedback, and ideas continually help us improve. And to our partners and stakeholders, who have supported us through all challenges. We look forward to a promising future together.