CMG Joins ColorGraphics
LOS ANGELES—ColorGraphics has recently announced the purchase of its second company since December 1997, which further expands its market penetration on the West Coast from Seattle to Irvine, CA.
ColorGraphics' latest addition is Calsonic Miura Graphics (CMG), an eight-year-old commercial printer based in Irvine. With the acquisition of this $20 million operation, ColorGraphics estimates sales will exceed $120 million in 1998.
Most, if not all, of CMG's business centered on brochures for automotive companies such as Nissan and Honda. However, as a result of a faltering economy in Japan and other contributing factors such as distance, CMG was forced to look at the possibility of selling. Since CMG and ColorGraphics have shared a successful long-standing relationship, the acquisition seemed like a natural fit.
CMG, now known as ColorGraphics/Irvine, is under the guidance of Pamela Jones, the daughter of one of ColorGraphics' founders, Tom Graham.
"We are very excited about the growth with this acquisition of two high-quality companies," she says. "Irvine will be a great printer."
ColorGraphics completed its first acquisition—Grossberg Tyler Lithographers—in December of last year. A Seattle company specializing in annual reports, Grossberg Tyler Lithographers serves companies such as Microsoft and Boeing.
With the purchases of CMG and Grossberg Tyler Lithographers, ColorGraphics now boasts four manufacturing plants. Grossberg Tyler Lithographers, in Seattle, and CMG, in Irvine, join existing ColorGraphics plants in Los Angeles and San Francisco. All facilities operate with a great deal of autonomy.
Although they are located in diverse regions and serve different customers, ColorGraphics' four facilities share one ideology: to provide superior value through lower costs, faster turnaround and continuous quality improvements—for the benefit of customers, employees and owners.
"It's not always technology that makes one company stand out from the others," contends Christopher Madison, president of ColorGraphics. "Rather, it's more skill and all the processes involved with the service that delivers the final product."
The additions of Grossberg Tyler Lithographers and CMG came rather fast for ColorGraphics, a commercial printer previously noted for a cautious and conservative growth strategy.
"This is enough growth for the immediate future," Madison explains. "We here at ColorGraphics are now in the process of digestion."
By A.L. Ruslavage