World Color Press to Acquire Great Western
PHOENIX—Greenwich, CT-based World Color Press plans to acquire Great Western Publishing, a printer of retail advertising inserts headquartered here, which had revenues of approximately $42 million in 1997. Great Western's other facilities are located in Ontario, CA, Salt Lake City and Houston.
Since its founding in 1988, Great Western has grown from a 12-person company to an organization with more than 400 employees. Great Western's customers include ABCO, Albertson's, Bashas', Best Buy, Fry's Food Store and Smith's Food & Drug.
Robert G. Burton, chairman and CEO of World Color, notes: "Great Western is an especially attractive acquisition for World Color, as it is a perfect complement to our first quarter 1998 acquisition of Century Graphics. Great Western's position as a leading retail insert printer significantly supplements the company and solidifies World Color's expansive national platform in the offset retail insert printing market."
Nasser Farrokh, president of Great Western, adds: "Great Western's excellent growth over the past 10 years has been credited to its advanced, state-of-the-art technology and superior customer relationships. Even with this period of tremendous growth, we need to be part of a larger printing organization to achieve the synergies necessary to maintain a leadership position in the retail circular business.
"World Color brings to Great Western's customers the resources to expand both our geographical reach as well as the ability to offer our customers World Color's 'one-stop shopping' platform. As our clients expand their base of operations, the combination of our cutting-edge technology with World Color's superior resources will represent a significant win for our customers," Farrokh enthuses.
"Great Western is our 21st acquisition since 1993 and our fifth this year," Burton says. "Their extensive offset printing capabilities will allow World Color to continue to take advantage of the changing environment of the retail advertising market. Due to the increasing dependence on advertising inserts to generate store traffic, combined with advertisers' heavy focus on targeted regional campaigns, there is a greater demand for technologically advanced offset printing in the retail segment. Customers will benefit from this strategic acquisition, as it will give them a broad-based national platform from which they can conduct their regional campaigns."
Looking ahead, Burton says: "As I have said before, it is World Color's goal to be a leading printer in the retail industry sector. This acquisition supplements our strong core business and its swift integration will allow us to focus upon expanding our capabilities and customer base in this market sector. Through this acquisition, customers will be afforded the opportunity to consolidate their marketing needs and improve efficiencies by taking advantage of World Color's comprehensive one-stop shopping platform."