Rock Around the Block - The Blog of Rock LaManna

Change seems to accelerate at an exponential rate these days.  Technology has allowed us to move faster and have more access to information.  It’s also been a key element to make an M&A (merger and acquisition) a growth strategy for small and mid-sized companies in the printing industry.

In the spirit of Halloween, I’d like to declare something I consider a fact:  Many printers are afraid of an M&A (merger and acquisition).

We all live in our own little worlds.  When you’re a printing company owner, your world is pretty well defined.  Every day you’re swamped with keeping track of operations, marketing, products and services.  Who has the time to get involved with an M&A?

Every merger and acquisition (M&A) in the printing industry is unique.  Every M&A has different people with different priorities in different sectors of the business.  Yet after 35 years in the game, I’ve noticed there are three die-hard attributes behind every successful merger and acquisition.

In June, I collaborated with Tim Greene of InfoTrends on an article that appeared on myprintresource.com.  The piece was entitled “Market Intelligence: M&A in Wide-Format Digital.”

A statistic that remains constant through good markets and bad is that there are 10 percent more buyers than sellers in mergers & acquisitions.  That figure encompasses all industries, and in the printing industry, that number might even be higher.