Williams Lea has a print history spanning over 200 years when it began as a financial printer in the City of London. The acquiring company, RR Donnelley (RRD) was once the world's largest printer and is still a major force but was broken up into 3 companies in 2016, and acquired by Chatham Private Equity in 2021.

 RRD buildingOnce described as 'the most beautiful manufacturing building in the world,' RRD's Chicago site is a city landmark

RR Donnelley logoThe deal will add around AUD$1.2 billion in revenues to RRD's portfolio, countless new clients and about 7,000 employees to add to its existing 30,000, including those in Asia-Pacific and Oceania. Williams Lea entered the Australian market in 2005 with the purchase of the Creatis. Since 2020 Williams Lea itself has been private equity-owned, by Advent International, who bought the business from Deutsche Post (DHL) in 2017. Since then, Advent divested the Global creative arm of Williams Lea - Tag - to Japanese advertising/media giant Dentsu.

The acquisition by RRD (est. 1864), pending regulatory approvals, should complete in Q1 of 2025 and, according to RRD President Tom Quinlan will: " Closely align with RRD’s growth strategy as we look to build upon our business support offerings and achieve the vision of our Digital, Creative and Business Support Services segment. Together, our capabilities coupled with our collective industry acumen and scale will provide clients with an even greater ability to maximise their own customer engagement strategies and streamline their business operations.”

The changing function of PSPs

Both companies are symptomatic of the evolution of print service providers morphing into Business Process Outsourcing concerns, providing a matrix of plug-on marketing, legal and customer reach services that go well beyond print and packaging - although these remain very important revenue sectors: it's just no longer fashionable to identify as 'a printer.'RRD ReneeDuAustralian RRD Sales Director, Renee Du

Nevertheless, RRD's corporate headquarters remain in Chicago at its original lakeside hub, with global revenues in the vicinity of AUD$10billion. In Australia, RRD has sales and BPO offices in Sydney, under Renee Du and also in Perth. Wliiams Lea Australia comes under the purview of Hong Kong - based Alastair Kelly, as APAC Managing Director and locally  by Sydney-based Business Director Grant Shreeve.

RRD's acquisition of Williams Lea looks to be a perfect fit and a savvy path to further growth. Our very own IVE Group today describes itself as providing: 'creative content, CX and data, eCommerce, brand activations, merchandise and apparel, packaging, print, distribution, and third-part logistics.' Print comes well down the list although its investment in print technologies, as with RRD, is huge - it's like print is becoming the silent background profit earner with large corporate PSPs.

In our region, it could be that, once the RRD/Williams Lea unification is complete around PacPrint time (May 2025) - we will start to see a rapid elevation of activity and visibility. Just don't mention printing!

https://www.rrd.com/

www.williamslea.com

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