Back in early November, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company (NYSE:RRD) spent $1.3 billion to buy Banta Corp., which is a printer of books and a provider of supply chain services.

A month later, R.R. Donnelley spent $176 million to buy Perry Judd's Holdings Incorporated. The company is a printer of magazines and catalogs.

Well, this week, we now have a trilogy: R.R. Donnelley has announced it is shelling out $412.5 million for Van Hoffman, which is a printer of education and trade books.

The company is a division of Visant, which is a private equity backed company (the owners include KKR and DLJ Merchant Partners).

All in all, these deals will help R.R. Donnelley build a global platform that offers a wide range of options for customers.

The good news is that these deals appear to be accretive to earnings. Then again, the print industry is fairly mature and the valuations are low.

What's more, Wall Street likes the deal, as R.R. Donnelley's stock price increased about 2% on the announcement.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates DealProfiles.com.

R.R. Donnelley: Lord of the deals originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's been a crazy ride for the print industry since Johannes Gutenberg invented modern printing in the 1400s.

So, it should be no surprise that many of the top companies in the industry have been around for a long time. R.R. Donnelley & Sons (NYSE:RRD), for example, was founded in 1864. Or take Banta Corp. (NYSE:BN). This company got its start in 1901.

Well, today, R.R. Donnelley agreed to shell out $1.3 billion for Banta. Last year, Banta generated about $1.54 billion in revenues. Banta also focuses on things like books and supply chain management.

But isn't the print industry dying because of the onslaught of the Internet? Maybe there is a reduction in media print. Yet, the fact remains that companies still print a lot of materials. In fact, with new regulations - such as Sarbanes-Oxley - there should be more demand for print. Also, industrialization in countries like China and India should be a catalyst.

Basically, R. R. Donnelly realized that it needs to consolidate the industry - cutting costs and adding new products.

And Wall Street agrees. While big deals like this tend to depress the stock price of the buyer, R. R. Donnelly's stock has held steady.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.

Donnelley prints $1.3 billion for a deal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 01 Nov 2006 14:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As I indicated in a recent BloggingStocks.com post, expect a slew of mega M&A deals - as private equity funds have huge amounts of capital to play with.

Well, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, it looks like the venerable printer, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., is in play. And, of course, the offers are in the ten-digits.

Actually, R.R. Donnelley is an ideal target for a buyout. That is, the company has a strong position in a relatively stable industry (hey, the company has been around since 1864). This certainly makes it easy to pay-off the debt, which is required to make these deals happen (the company pumps out over $1 billion in annual cash flows). Also, the stock price has been lackluster this year, making the valuation relatively attractive.

Apparently, there are two groups interested in R. R. Donnelley. The first group consists of Carlyle Group, Madison Dearborn Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners. The other includes the Blackstone Group and Texas Pacific Group.

The deal would have a value north of $7.3 billion.

However, do not expect a bidding war. So far, in these big deals, private equity firms have been restrained. In fact, if the deal gets too rich, these firms have typically used the strategy to "just say no." Maybe Wall Street does, in some cases, learn lessons from the past?

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, such as the Complete M&A Handbook (Random House) and operates InvestorOffering.com.

R.R. Donnelley's $7.4 Billion Print Job originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.