Paul Reilly

Owners of printing and packaging companies draw salaries like everyone else. But, selling the business could mean changing the compensation structure in support of the deal.

Any slowdown in the pace of M&As among printing and packaging firms is only temporary. The industry is recovering, buyers are flexible, and the fundamental forces that drive M&A activity are still in play.

At many companies, pandemic-related business pressures have obliged owners to ask themselves which jobs are and aren’t necessary. Although this can be uncomfortable, it is also a valuable opportunity to reconsider the interrelationship of staff size, payroll expense, and profitability.

When the coronavirus pandemic upended the economy and the printing and packaging industries, business owners had to focus on the immediate needs of their companies and employees. But as we move toward economic recovery, there are certain steps companies can take to put themselves in a favorable position.

A plain truth for our commercial printing clients is that a company’s valuation is directly linked to its investment in technology. We think that investment in technology is just as crucial for producers of labels and packaging, but we wonder if the message is being heard clearly enough.

An “attractive” company is a well-managed company: one whose owner has kept it competitive by making the right decisions about market focus, technical capability, and customer relationships.

In an M&A transaction, navigating the sequence of events dictated by the closing process needs to be carefully managed so the parties involved can successfully reach the point where they can say, "Congratulations - we did it!"

You've finally made it to the point in an acquisition where you can sit down with the seller and close the deal. This is the point at which we always urge our buying clients to pause, take a breath, and circle back to the essentials of the transaction.

The fast pace of transactions in 2016 tells us that the market is sound and many that are looking for opportunities to buy or sell have had little difficulty in locating them.

In our recent webinar, we were happy to report that the pace of dealmaking in the industry remains strong and that opportunities for buyers and sellers should continue to be abundant at least in the near term. How long these conditions will last is impossible to predict. For the moment, though, as M&A advisers, we like what we’re seeing.

Who would have thought that we’d ever be talking about negative interest rates? Now we have to, because in many places, they’ve become a fact of life.

New Direction Partners takes a look at Jarden Corp.'s acquisition of Visant Holding Corp. and Multi Packaging Solution's initial public offering.

It sounds like hyperbole, but it isn’t: 2015 was the best year of the century for mergers and acquisitions among printing and packaging companies.

Perhaps the biggest piece of news in the printing industry so far this year was the recent announcement by RR Donnelley & Sons of its intention to split itself into three independent, publicly traded businesses.

Some say life is a beach, and if you’re a beachcomber or a professional surfer, that may well be the case. For owners of printing and packaging companies, though, “beach” is a metaphor for life after selling the business.