Vistaprint has acquired 97% of Web-to-print specialist Pixartprinting for 127 million Euro. The remaining three percent will continue to be owned by Pixartprinting founder Matteo Rigamonti.
The agreement includes an earn-out to a maximum of 10 million Euro for Pixartprinting, subject to the achievement of sales targets and EBITDA for the year 2014. Through the acquisition Pixartprinting is expected to expand beyond Europe into the worldwide market.
Robert Keane, president and CEO of Vistaprint, said: "We believe this agreement will lead to benefits both in terms of the sharing of know-how, expansion of the range, savings in the production process and logistics management, focusing on the strength of the individual brands that will continue to operate independently with their own identity and position.”
He added: “We can count on a consolidated strategy to achieve competitive advantages of scale in our operations. We continue to make great progress from the traditional Vistaprint point of view of the repositioning of our brand and we have won the trust of many kinds of customers, i.e. those small businesses that make up the vast and fragmented universe of print. We believe that the approach of Pixartprinting will help us meet the demands of a market segment that Vistaprint has not yet served. Pixartprinting has a history of success, with a rapid growth in sales and profits and high levels of customer satisfaction. Pixartprinting has much to teach us and together we will expand the range of products.”
Alessandro Tenderini, CEO Pixartprinting, said of the move: “Our goal is to cross European borders. We have a cohesive team dynamic, which now has 330 employees, ready to face a new challenge. They are our primary resource on a daily basis to ensure the quality of product and service that distinguishes us in the market and our source of ideas for anticipating new trends”.
Pixartprinting operates and produces from its 1?8,000m2 headquarters in Quarto D'Altino near Venice. It provides a 24/7 guaranteed print service to more than 100,000 active customers in Europe.
Founded in 1994 as a family company, in 2000 it switched focus to become a totally online-based business. 2011 saw the entrance of private equity fund company Alcedo, which worked alongside Pixartprinting management, contributing to revenue growth, the opening of foreign markets and expanded production.
Rigamonti said: “The print market B2B online still has great potential. Vistaprint is an additional accelerator for us to approach new markets alongside a multinational company listed on the Nasdaq, with offices worldwide and synergistic to our business”.
The numbers depict the rise of Pixartprinting: 32 million Euro turnover 2011; 41 million in 2012; 56 million in 2013. Over the past two years, the Venetian company scored an average increase in sales of more than 35% and EBITDA growth of approximately 43%, reaching an EBITDA of more than 15 million Euro in 2013.
Pixartprinting operates in the European market as a multinational company. For each country considered commercially viable, a "virtual store" has been created, with personalised workflows and shops now available online in 11 languages. "The impact abroad is increasing year by year. This makes our reality more stable and less susceptible to changes in individual markets,” said Rigamonti. Successes achieved in recent years through a strategy of geolocation that today is seen as the basis for even more ambitious targets with Vistaprint.