PPB November 2018

BEHIND THE FEATURE | Mergers & Acquisitions T wo trends have come to define the promotional products industry in the years since the Great Recession. The first is the continued increase in overall industry sales—PPAI’s 2017 Sales Volume Study shows that between 2009 and 2017, distributor sales have grown from $15.6 million to $23.3 million, a 49 percent increase. The second trend, and one that is in many ways linked to the first, is the prevalence of mergers and acquisitions. In the first nine months of this year alone, more than 20 company acquisitions have been inked. Consolidation is not a newconcept in the business world and it has been happening regularly among the industry’s diversemarket for years. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS AND 62 | NOVEMBER 2018 |