New Direction Partners

Whether establishing valuation, assisting with succession planning, or working with you on mergers and acquisitions, New Direction Partners is the only investment banking firm dedicated to the print and packaging industry. Founded in 2009, we leverage our collective years of industry experience to work with business owners, offering a variety of services. Our Partners and Directors have closed more than 300 transactions, and we were recognized by Axial as #5 in its Top 20 Lower Middle Market Investment Banks in Q3 2019. Contact us to learn how we can help you prepare for a profitable future.

No sale can succeed for the seller without a clear-eyed understanding of what the business is really — meaning really — worth. Here’s a primer on this essential subject.

Whether establishing valuation, assisting with succession planning, or working with you on mergers and acquisitions, New Direction Partners is the only investment banking firm dedicated to the print and packaging industry. We have over 200 years of industry experience with transactions in aggregate exceeding $2 billion. Contact us to learn how we can help you prepare for a profitable future.

At New Direction Partners, we often advise selling owners of printing businesses to be prepared to stay on in one role or another after the transaction closes. Because keeping a hand in the business at the new owner’s request is a given in so many deals, it’s helpful to have some idea of what the responsibility is going to entail.

Sooner or later, a printing business doing well where it was born will start to think about planting its flag someplace else. To expand geographically, a firm can either acquire a company in a distant region as a going concern or merge with it to form a consolidated, but dual-location, entity.

Not all that long ago, it seemed that investors seeking middle-market opportunities wanted to look at anything but printing. This, happily, has changed, and for the last several years, middle-market investors have shown that they now regard acquiring profitable, well-run printing and packaging companies as a smart play.

Even if you're at the peak of your career as a printing company owner, and the decision to sell your printing business is years away, there's no time like the present to account for the necessary steps to be ready for the sales process.

As the former president of a Printing Industries of America regional affiliate, I had the good fortune to work with many smart and successful owners of thriving printing businesses. I had the greatest respect for their abilities, but then as now, there is one thing that I would never have recommended that they attempt: selling their companies without professional representation and advisement.

If, as the owner of a printing company, you suddenly decided to stop showing up for work, could the business carry on without you?

Do you, as the owner of a printing business, have a plan for no longer being the owner of that business?