Industry Consolidation -- A Quiet Buyer's Market

THE ECONOMY is acting as a clog in the plumbing of printing industry M&A. The system is feeling more and more pressure from companies prolonging their desire to sell a business that perhaps needs an infusion of new blood or new equipment. Then there is the buyer...his hands locked by tight credit markets or unrealistic seller expectations. One doesn’t need statistics to provide enlightenment as to the economic realities that 2009 will offer. But they do help to gauge expectations. Take Compass Capital Partners, publisher of the annual “Compass Report” scorecard of industry M&A activity, which has completed roughly 150 printing industry deals. Its chairman and CEO, Harris DeWese, points out there were 60-odd deals in the printing industry during 2008, a good 80 percent of which were printers; the rest, suppliers.