Albert J. Reijmer

Where print business owners can make the timing work to their advantage is in the transfer of the business to a new owner.

Part of a sound plan for launching a printing business is thinking ahead to the future leadership succession plan.

In diplomacy, the motto for negotiators and peacemakers is “Trust, but verify.” The advice applies to M&A transactions between printing companies as well. Get the facts, confirm the understandings, and be open about everything that the process discloses.

On the whole, 2017 is shaping up as an encouraging time for business.

In business, strategic planning serves the same purpose as all the prep work we did to get ready for Thanksgiving.

When the time comes to sell your business, it’s also time to start looking at machinery through different eyes.

We may be in a seller’s market now, but that can and will change with time. It always does. As with almost everything else in life and business, timing can make all of the difference in the degree of success you will achieve in a sell transaction.

In the first part of this discussion about what motivates owners of print and packaging companies in transacting mergers and acquisitions, we noted that every buyer and seller needs to have a clearly defined “why” in mind whether a deal is on the horizon or not. Now, let’s address what drives the thinking of buyers who are actively pursuing acquisitions.

Acquiring or being acquired by another company can be a long, drawn-out and distracting process in which the proverbial cat can be hard to keep in the bag. With the guidance of a professional M&A adviser, you can be sure of what to say, when to say it and whom to say it to.

What determines your strategy for an acquisition? There are as many situation-specific answers as there are printing companies, but our buying clients at New Direction Partners usually have one or more of the following objectives in mind. Some are more relevant to tuck-ins (where only customer accounts are acquired) than to sales as going concerns, and vice versa. But, they’re all good examples of good reasons to proceed.

If you've decided to grow your business by acquisition, it follows that you're thinking like a buyer. But, can you think like a seller as well? You'll need to move nimbly from one mindset to another as you strategize the purchase that you want to make. Your own goals will be clear enough, but it will be harder to attain them if you can't also inject yourself into the thought process on the seller's end.