How Much is Your Private Printing-related Company Worth Compared to Large Public Companies?
Many times, our firm is asked for a “quickie” or “shoot-from-the-hip” idea of what a private company might be worth. Here is some data collected on our weekly PrintStockWatch companies:
If you did not know, Total Enterprise Value (TEV) is:
As you can see in the chart, on average the nine publicly-traded printing companies trade at 78 percent of Sales and ~3 times Gross Margin $. Keep in mind that these are public companies with audited financial statements and EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Depreciation/Amortization) has been calculated as “pure” (vs. “recast”). Since your company is most likely privately-owned, it would be subject to a discount off the above valuation metrics of at least 25 percent ... and perhaps more.
Deluxe Corp. (NYSE: DLX) is the most “valuable” company in our PrintStockWatch with a TEV of $4B+. Deluxe also has the highest Gross Margin % (an astounding 63.4 percent) and trades at the highest multiple of Sales (2.11X).
Multi-Color (Nasdaq: LABL) trades at an almost unbelievable 9.17X Gross Margin $.
R.R. Donnelley (NYSE: RRD) remains the largest printing company in the land with $6.94B in TTM sales even after the “spins” last fall of LSC Communications ($3.54B in Sales) and Donnelley Financial Solutions ($1B in Sales).
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Jim Anderson is the founder and president of Corporate Development Associates.