M&A REPORT -- New Era of Consolidation

BY ERIK CAGLE

Who can forget 1998 and 1999? Those were easily the salad days of merger and acquisition in the commercial printing industry.

The dotcom craze was sweeping across all U.S. industries, with venture capitalists seeking new avenues into the printing segment. Wall Street coveted this largely fragmented industry, and a wave of new kids on the block, consolidators, embarked on the IPO-and-roll-up philosophy. Roughly a half-dozen of these consolidators vied for the growing number of printing companies looking to become cogs in much larger machines, seeking either payola or the benefits from the economies of scale. The national economy was a well-oiled machine, and everyone wanted a slice of the fiscal pie.