SOURCE - The Target Report
From Printing to Print Management to Business Process Outsourcing
Printing companies increasingly seek to diversify their service offerings via acquisitions of companies that support their customers’ communication needs outside of print. However, despite the increasing use of electronic media, print remains one of the critical channels in today’s messaging mix. Print-centric companies that proactively grow via an M&A strategy go back and forth, shifting directions, alternately completing transactions that bring in additional print volume, and then subsequently acquire a company with services that are adjacent to print, but not core to the mission of putting ink on paper.
RR Donnelley is Back in the Acquisition Game
In late December, RR Donnelley (RRD), now owned by Chatham Asset Management, announced its second big deal of 2024, the acquisition of Williams Lea. The deal is a classic example of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” or more correctly “buy ‘em.”
The acquired company, based in London, is one of a handful of firms that have successfully placed themselves firmly between printing companies and their large enterprise-level customers. As the intermediary between printer and customer, these firms purport to drive competition between print providers more effectively than can be achieved if the corporations leave print buying to their own internal staff.
The CEO of RRD noted that the acquisition of Williams Lea aligns the company’s strategy to build on their business support offerings to achieve their “vision of the Digital, Creative and Business Support Services segment.” The combination will enable their clients to “maximize their own customer engagement strategies and streamline their business operations.” No mention of acquired print volume.
For Williams Lea, the acquired company, the transaction is a full-circle return to its printing roots. German immigrant John Wertheimer came to London in 1820 with a letter of introduction to a member of the wealthy Rothschild family. Wertheimer used the resultant connections to start his printing business under the moniker Wertheimer & Co. Products produced were traditional printed items including books, stationery, and publications. With its German and Jewish roots, the company specialized in foreign language translation and printing, including Hebrew and German, a fact with subsequent impact on the company’s fortunes.
In 1864, the same year that Richard Robert Donnelley started his printing business in Chicago, John Edward Lea joined the London printing company, and the name was changed to Wertheimer Lea & Co. to reflect the new ownership. In 1884, a partnership was formed with John Henry Williams, a year after Wertheimer’s death. With the outbreak of the First World War, amid the anti-German sentiment in Britain, the Wertheimer name was dropped, and the firm’s name was changed to Williams Lea.