CONSOLIDATORS - Slowing, but Growing

Norton: Wall Street had a major impact because public printing company P/E ratios many times were less than the multiple that sellers desired for the sale of their businesses. Therefore, many acquisitions would be dilutive to the buyer's stockholders.

Davis: The fact that consolidators, including ourselves, had some rather robust projections to meet, and the fact that that we didn't make those projections—we missed them slightly—caused our stock price to drop. That had an impact on the pace of acquisition in the commercial printing industry.