Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Levine Leichtman Partners with Management to Acquire FASTSIGNS International

Blog Publisher’s Comment:

FastSigns was founded by Gary Salomon, but Gary sold most of his stake in FastSigns International years ago, at the time he retired from active management in the company.  Shortly after that (or around that time), Catherine Monson joined the company as its CEO, and Catherine has done an outstanding job growing FastSign International’s business.  Congratulations to Catherine on her partnership with Levine Leichtman Partners!


Levine Leichtman Capital Partners has partnered with management to complete the acquisition of FASTSIGNS International.

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, has partnered with management to complete the acquisition of FASTSIGNS International. FASTSIGNS is the market leading franchisor in the custom sign and graphics industry with nearly 550 franchised locations across 44 US states and eight international countries with additional franchises recently sold and soon to open in the UAE and Northern Africa. FASTSIGNS is a sign, graphics and visual communications company that helps customers of all sizes – across all industries – meet their business objectives and increase their business visibility. Some of the products and services that FASTSIGNS uses to provide comprehensive solutions include vehicle, floor and window graphics, point of purchase signs, digital signs, labels and decals, architectural and interior décor signs, printing, promotional products and wearables, mobile marketing and other related marketing services. FASTSIGNS was founded in 1985 and is headquartered outside of Dallas, TX.
FASTSIGNS is the fourth investment from Levine Leichtman Capital Partners V, L.P. Lauren Leichtman, Co-Founder and CEO of LLCP, said, “We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Catherine Monson whom has driven strong performance and solidified FASTSIGNS’ position as the market leader since joining as CEO in 2009. The Company’s growth prospects and strong cash flow characteristics resemble those of past successful LLCP franchise investments, and we look forward to our partnership with the Company to generate another great outcome.”

Catherine Monson, FASTSIGNS Chief Executive Officer, commented, “Having a partner that understands franchising and the importance of providing valuable support to franchisees was critical to us in selecting our next financial partner. The deep experience LLCP has investing in franchise businesses inspired great confidence among my management team that they are the right partner to support our continued growth.” FASTSIGNS was advised by North Point Advisors.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Ben Moss takes significant stake in Callprint Group

Callprint is one of the three largest reprographics enterprises in the UK.

From an article now up on PrintWeek:

Former Service Graphics and McKenzie Clark director Ben Moss has returned to print by taking a “significant” stake in Callprint Group.

Callprint has sales of £12.5m, but Moss said that he and the other directors planned to grow this to £25m over the next two years through organic growth and by targeting new sectors.

Full article at this link:



Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Heads up! Patrick Crean, CEO of the Paragon Group, interviewed by Ed Avis of the IRgA!

In what may prove to be one of the most interesting posts to go up on the IRgA web-site this year, Ed Avis, Managing Director of the IRgA, will soon be publishing an interview he conducted with Patrick Crean. 

If you are a frequent visitor of the Reprographics 101 Blog, you must be aware by now that the Paragon Group, a company never before involved in the A/E/C reprographics space, has acquired, or now controls, most of the business units formerly operated by Service Point Solutions, SA.  Inasmuch as a good slug of SPS’ business came/comes from A/E/C reprographics, these acquisitions, of course, have vaulted the Paragon Group into the world of reprographics … and in a major way.

Visit the IRgA web-site frequently; I’m told that the interview of Patrick Crean will appear either tomorrow or the next day.


Will HP Page-Wide technology wide-format printers someday disrupt the screen printing business and industry?

I just noticed that the upcoming September issue of Wide-Format Imaging will feature an article/report on “FLATBED” printers.

The advent of flatbed printers made it possible to print (large-format, photo-realistic color prints) directly onto substrates.  Imaging/printing companies that don’t have flatbed printers still have to go through a two-step process (first step, print, second step, mount) in order to complete jobs that require prints be mounted on substrates.  I can’t imagine being a true player in this space -  large-format poster and POS printing – if one does not have a flatbed printer.


But, that’s not the point I’d like to make; the point I’d like to make is this.  All of the current flatbed printers I’m aware of (and I may not be aware of all of them) use a print-head that goes “back and forth” and “back and forth” across the print-width of the print device; in other words, “traditional” plotter action.  Although HP has announced that its first “PageWide” technology wide-format printer will be targeted at the “technical” document market, what’s to prevent HP from later coming out with a “PageWide” technology FLATBED printer?  If/when that happens, I think that that would be truly disruptive to the screen printing business and industry.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Sepialine releases Printerpoint

Hi Joel,

We've been longtime fans of your blog over here, and wanted to share with you some news about our new product - Printerpoint.

Printerpoint is a cloud-based wide format device management tool that is geared towards equipment dealers and resellers. We currently support HP Designjet, Canon IPF and Océ devices, and plan to include additional manufacturers in the future. 

We've been working with RSA and ReproMAX members to roll this out over the past few months, but just made the first official announcement about it today:


You can check out Printerpoint here: https://www.printerpoint.com

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks,

Alan

Alan Kasameyer
Director of Product Management
Sepialine
(800) 404-9558 x152