The Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA), a printing industry trade group, announced this week that it has acquired NAPCO Media—the Philadelphia-based B2B publisher of Book Business, Printing Impressions and Publishing Executive, among a handful of other titles—for an undisclosed sum. While uncommon, this instance of a trade association acquiring a publisher whose magazines serve similar markets isn't entirely without precedent; as noted by Pub Exec senior editor Leah Wynalek, the NAPCO sale comes almost exactly five years after PMMI—a trade group serving the packaging industry—acquired Summit Media Group and its stable of packaging industry publications in 2014. Interviewed by Wynalek earlier this week, NAPCO president Dave Leskusky—who will continue to lead the media group—and SGIA CEO Ford Bowers echoed many of the same reasons given for PMMI's purchase of Summit in 2014, extolling the combined reach and complementary offerings of the two organizations across media, events, research and training, while at the same time referring to their relationship as "a partnership" and issuing assurances that NAPCO will continue to operate "independently from an editorial perspective" out of its Philadelphia offices (SGIA is based in Fairfax, Va.). Groundwork for the acquisition was first laid in 2017, when NAPCO and SGIA partnered to launch the trade show Printing United, an expanded version of its predecessor, the SGIA Expo, which is set to debut in Dallas in... Continue reading at 'Folio Magazine'
[ Folio Magazine | 2019-08-08 18:53:40 UTC ]