The Bloom Is Off the Rose – January 2026 M&A Activity

Label Converters Enter a More Sober Phase

For much of the past decade and a half, discussions about mergers and acquisitions in the printing and packaging industries have been dominated by the steady drumbeat of label-printing deals, as often reported here in The Target Report. (See The Target Report: Duking it Out in the Label Business – February 2023). However, over the past several months, transactional activity in the label segment has slowed, and there have been rumblings that the overall label printing and converting businesses face increasing headwinds.

Those rumblings turned unmistakably loud on January 29th, when Multi-Color Corporation (“MCC”) filed for Chapter 11 protection under a prepackaged restructuring plan designed to slash its debt load, eliminate existing equity, and fundamentally reset its capital structure. Supported in advance (hence the “prepack”) by the majority of its senior lenders and its private equity sponsor, CD&R, the filing allows MCC to continue operating without disruption.

MCC’s importance to the industry and the impact of the bankruptcy filing cannot be overstated. As of the bankruptcy filing, the company operated in 25 countries, with over 90 facilities, of which 39 are in North America. The company employs 12,800 people worldwide, with 4,870 of those working here in the US. The parent company has 85 wholly owned subsidiaries and 56 related debtor entities that filed for bankruptcy concurrently with MCC.

The MCC bankruptcy filing is the clearest signal yet that the consolidation in the label printing and converting sector has entered a more mature, and far less forgiving, phase. For many in the label business, including other PE-backed label platform companies, a top contender in the contest for a high-multiple exit from ownership has been taken off the field, at least for the foreseeable future.

A History of Innovation

MCC traces its roots to 1916, when it was founded in Cincinnati as the Franklin Development Company. The founders were impressed by the latest innovations in printing technology, especially the new mechanized presses that enabled the three-color printing process (black was just being introduced as the fourth color at the time). As a consequence of their interest in the new machines, their initial business venture was to incorporate The Printing Machinery Company as a subsidiary. They quickly decided that the business of operating the presses, rather than competing with established press manufacturers, was a better option, and changed the name to Multicolor Type.

By 1918, the company was producing color paper labels. From the beginning, the company focused on big national brands that required consistent color and predictable quality. Early references to the company’s customers in the 1920’s include stalwart names such as Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, Campbell Soup, and Wrigley chewing gum.

From the humble beginnings in three-color printing, the company steadily evolved its technological prowess, investing heavily in rotogravure printing during the 1950s. Most notably, MCC played the instrumental role in the development of in-mold label technology, which was introduced to the market in 1980.

A Roll-Up of Roll-Ups

The current incarnation of MCC is the product of a steady drumbeat of acquisitions spanning nearly four decades. In 1985, the company acquired Georgia-Pacific's label-printing divisions, followed by an initial public offering two years later. The company focused on building its unique advantage in the in-mold label business, a limited market, while suffering declines in the much larger market for traditional labels. A substantial decline in business occurred when cigarette manufacturers brought packaging printing in-house, amidst the decline in smoking in the US. What followed for MCC was a precursor of today’s challenges as the company limped through the 1990s. There were years in which the company, which was public at the time, reported significant losses.

Beginning in late 1999, the company changed course and began an aggressive campaign of acquisitions and mergers to expand its market position and product offerings. With the acquisition of France-based Buriot International, MCC entered the market for pressure-sensitive labels, which was experiencing significant growth, driven by technological advancements in flexographic printing. Shortly thereafter, MCC acquired Uniflex Corporation, adding heat-shrink labels and tamper-evident bands to its product lineup.

In October 2011, just one month after the launch of The Target Report, MCC made its first appearance in this column and has appeared regularly in our deal logs and commentary ever since. In July 2017, the nature of the transactions changed dramatically in size and impact when MCC acquired the label division of Vienna, Austria-based Constantia Flexibles, itself the product of a concerted roll-up strategy. A year and a half later, Platinum Equity entered the picture and announced that it was taking MCC private in a transaction valued at $2.5 billion, ending MCC’s 32 years as a public company (See The Target Report: Platinum Equity Likes Print – February 2019). The transaction included the assumption of $1.5 billion of debt.  When the deal closed later that year, Platinum Equity simultaneously merged MCC with WS Packaging, which it had acquired in 2018.

In July 2021, private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (“CD&R”) hit a double, acquiring MCC from Platinum Equity simultaneously with the acquisition of PE-backed Fort Dearborn, one of MCC’s major competitors and itself the result of serial acquisitions (See The Target Report: Packaging Industry Consolidation in Every Direction – July 2021). While the terms of the CD&R transaction were not disclosed, it is a safe assumption that the multiple, layered transactions involved significant debt placed on the combined, and now truly global, organization. According to documents filed with the Bankruptcy Court, as of the filing date, the company’s aggregate outstanding principal amount of prepetition debt obligations stood at $5.9 billion.

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