Business Management - M&A

Avery Dennison signed an agreement to acquire Vestcom, a provider of pricing and branded labeling solutions at the shelf-edge for retailers and CPG companies, for $1.45 billion in a cash transaction. Vestcom will accelerate Avery Dennison's portfolio shift to high-value categories.

Signature and Action Flexible Packaging have acquired Chromatic Labels. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., Chromatic provides flexible packaging, shrink sleeves, and labels to short-run, high-SKU count customers.

With this acquisition, ProAmpac expands its paper manufacturing capabilities and strengthens its market position in the important recycled and sustainable product categories.

Resource Label Group, a full service provider of pressure sensitive label, shrink sleeve, and RFID/NFC technology, has completed a merger agreement with funds managed by the Private Equity Group of Ares Management Corporation.

Platinum Equity has announced the signing of a definitive agreement to sell Multi-Color Corporation to affiliates of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R). In connection with the transaction, CD&R also announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fort Dearborn from Advent International, and that it intends to combine MCC and Fort Dearborn.

ProAmpac announced that it has acquired Ultimate Packaging, a pioneer in flexographic and digitally-printed flexible packaging based in the United Kingdom.

The purchase will broaden Sun Chemical’s portfolio as a global manufacturer of pigments, including those for electronic displays, cosmetics, coatings, inks, plastics, and specialty applications.

The future of print will increasingly be individually customized with the images we want applied to whatever products we choose.

Acquiring a printing or a packaging company is a complex process — and so is arranging the funding that makes the transaction possible. Most buyers, and especially those making their first acquisitions, will have homework to do about putting together the “stack” of capital they’ll need.

A prospective client recently asked me if the use of a Special Purpose Acquisition Company might be applicable to their firm. I said SPACs were suited to much bigger companies. I was wrong. In the case of one industrial printing company, a merger into a SPAC is the pathway to value and liquidity for the owners.