Label Roll-Ups are Red Hot; Are Folding Cartons Next? – March 2022 M&A Activity

Merger and acquisition activity in the label and flexible packaging printing and converting segments has been on fire, with several PE-backed roll-ups competing to pick up family-owned and managed companies. As the market becomes more crowded with competing PE platforms, several roll-ups were inevitably themselves rolled up in secondary and tertiary buys (see Private Equity Fuel$ Consolidation of Label Industry – September 2021).

The activity in the label and flexible packaging segments continues unabated, month after month, and March was no exception. All American Label & Packaging, with backing from Heartwood Partners, merged with Western Shield Label & Packaging, itself a serial acquirer of label companies. C-P Flexible Packaging, with financial sponsorship of First Atlantic Capital, acquired Bass Flexible Packaging. The Jordan Company, a PE firm with deep experience in packaging films and paperboard mills, acquired Five Star Holding, a Texas-based group of companies that produce flexible packaging, printed films, and plastic bags. H.I.G. Capital, the global behemoth fund and no stranger to print-centric businesses has rebranded its new flexible packaging platform simultaneously with the purchase of TechFlex Packaging in Gardena, California. Operating now as DazPak, the new entity incorporates the former acquisitions of Action Packaging and Signature Flexible Packaging, and certainly is in the hunt for more.