Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ - November 2015 M&A Activity

Rawhide... by The Blues Brothers (click here for the song while reading)

Call it a roll-up; strategic add-ons, or platform bolt-ons – by any name you give it, M&A activity is brisk as companies build specialty printing companies with scale and geographic diversity. In the packaging segment, Pharmaceutic Litho & Label, a California-based insert and label printing company, acquired east-coast Plymouth Printing. With plants in New Jersey and North Carolina, the acquired company has been laser-focused on the pharmaceutical insert and label market for almost 90 years. As a portfolio company of Saugatuck Capital since October 2014 (see The Target Report – October 2014, the Pharmaceutic platform has now established a stake in the competitive territory for pharmaceutical inserts and labels. With the additional backing and participation of mezzanine fund Ironwood Capital, we won’t be surprised to see Saugatuck continue to roll this one up.

Rondo-Pak, a subsidiary of Swiss conglomerate Körber and much larger player in the same niche market segment, merged with New Jersey printer Contemporary Graphic Solutions. The newly formed US division will carry the Rondo-Pak name and combines Rondo’s existing US and Puerto Rico operations and brings pharmaceutical folding cartons into the mix for Contemporary’s existing customer base.

Marketing Services (MSP’s)

Commercial printers have struggled to redefine themselves as more than just another print shop hungrily hoping to successfully bid on and win their next order. Many have migrated into the middle ground between being a printer or an advertising agency, finding themselves in the loosely defined territory of “marketing service providers,” also known as MSP’s. The trail on the way to being a true MSP is littered with companies that have failed to execute, only having succeeded in re-branding themselves with a new name, but failing to develop real differentiation or a well-defined and defensible position in the market.