(New York, NY, May 2001) First, there was consolidation. Then, there was growth. Now, retraction and layoffs. While printers ride the roller coaster ride called downturn, one innovative company is bucking the trend. A little over a year since acquiring Finley Digital Photographics, Line & Tone announced a merger with Target Graphics of Boonton, NJ. Target Graphics and its art creation subsidiary, MediaLogix are now wholly owned subsidiaries of Line & Tone. "After months of analysis and planning, the Board of Directors of both companies determined that the merger creates a graphics powerhouse without equal in the NY Metropolitan area. This combined strength results in a company with the most diverse offering of services, including extensive prepress, pressroom and bindery capacity, and the best geographic locations for its clients. The two companies fit together so well that it was an easy decision," said Nosrat Khansari, Chairman & CEO. " We all feel this is an excellent strategic move that will ensure our competitive edge for years to come." "When we moved into our Boonton facility in 1997, we planned for future growth and began to look for strategic partners to better service our corporate and agency clientele and utilize our new capacity," states Mark Hahn, President and COO. "That logic led to our highly successful acquisition of the Litho Prep company last Spring and the formation of MediaLogix, our art creation and retouching subsidiary. We believe that by extending Target's reach into Manhattan and broadening our service offerings, our clients benefit and our employees have more opportunities for personal growth." Growing Without the Pains Having outgrown its Mahwah, NJ facility, Line & Tone was looking at real estate in the Boonton area in which to combine its Mahwah and Parsippany, NJ offices. Boonton is ideally situated close to Parsippany and just down Route 287 from Mahwah. "We needed to find 50-60,000 square feet in a building that we could eventually buy." said Khansari. "Target had 55,000 square feet in an ideal location with prepress, pressroom and bindery equipment that was a perfect complement to ours. We'd be able to move our Mahwah plant into Target's, not miss a single day of production, and have the added synergy of merging two businesses." The benefits of the merger were easy to qualify and quantify. These are the highlights: Two Strategic Locations Manhattan, NY and Boonton, NJ will be the primary locations offering over 75,000 sf of state-of-the-art facilities. Line & Tone's Parsippany operation will move to Boonton immediately, followed by its Mahwah operation planned for 4th quarter 2001 after renovations in Boonton are complete. Manhattan will remain as a fully functioning production facility, as well as providing the strategic benefits of a New York sales and customer service office, and MediaLogix art creation studio. Increased Pressroom and Bindery Capacity The combined company has 2, 6 and 8 color 40 inch Heidelberg Speedmaster CD presses with coaters, two 6 color 28 inch Heidelberg Speedmaster presses with coater or perfector, 1/1, 4/2 & 2/2 perfecting, 4 color digital QuickMaster DI press, 1 and 2 color 18 inch presses, Xerox DocuColor short-run printing, die scoring, perfing and a doubling of the bindery capacity. Computerized Stahl folders to 30 inches with gatefold attachment and Polar cutters to 54 inches with workflow automation eliminate bindery bottlenecks. Two Stahl 6 pocket saddlestitchers with cover feeders and a Heidelberg die press round out the full service bindery. Latest Technology High-speed fiber-optic networks, SGI UNIX servers, G4 Macs & PIII PCs, and AGFA Avantra imagesetters are supplemented by the dual Imation Digital Matchprint proofing systems. Current plans call for the immediate installation of direct-to-plate technology for the entire pressroom. Complete internet-based XiNet WebNative digital asset management and high-speed file transfer capabilities is currently available in Manhattan and will move to Boonton from Mahwah. This strategy of complete digital production and file archive and backup systems at both locations offers clients tremendous capacity and safety through redundancy. More Services Line & Tone benefits from the huge increase in press and bindery capacity, the consolidation of Parsippany and Mahwah locations, and the addition of the MediaLogix art creation studios. Mailing and fulfillment services are also available at the Boonton facility. Target Graphics benefits from the press capacity increase, a new Manhattan office and a broad range of new prepress and digital imaging services and expertise such as digital photography, large format imaging, mounting and laminating, short-run Xerox DocuColor and Heidelberg DI printing. Cost Savings Synergies "By combining 4 locations into 2 super locations servicing the same geographic area, we realize cost savings that will help us grow our business and be more competitive in the future. The combined entity will continue to invest in new technology. Both sides bring a total of over 150 highly trained, dedicated and competent staff to the equation, but since the fit is so perfect, we don't expect any staff reductions due to overlap," said Hahn. Hands-On Board of Directors The five member Board of Directors is comprised of working shareholders who will oversee the management of the entire organization. Nosrat Khansari, Chairman & CEO; Mark Hahn, President & COO; and Michael Hertzig, Sr. Vice President Sales, will be located at the Boonton facility. Joe Dec, Executive Vice President & Treasurer; and Paul Del Nunzio, Sr. Vice President, CTO & Secretary, will manage the Manhattan facility. "We have been providing our Manhattan clients with full service printing and prepress services with print production at our Mahwah location. The move to Boonton allows us to offer more competitive pricing on all sheetfed work and a facility that has multiple presses for large client OK jobs requiring multiple forms," proclaimed Dec. "We will still continue to offer the convenience of high end prepress scanned on our Hell 3900 scanner and assembled in Manhattan for fast, local delivery of proofs for prepress and printing jobs." Managed by Working Owners Joining with the Board of Directors in managing the companies and subsidiaries are Jan Unger, President of MediaLogix; Harold Bloom, Creative Director of MediaLogix; David Finley, Vice President; Tom Lopez, Vice President; Isa Suqi, Vice President; Jack Kapinos, Manager of Media Services; and Mark Correia, Vice President of Manufacturing. "We have owners in key management positions throughout the companies to ensure that things run well and that the bottom line is constantly watched," states Michael Hertzig, who understands the value of communicating this important reassurance to his customers. "Clients are comfortable knowing that an interested party is watching over their jobs." A Few Good Salespeople - A Full Quiver of Services "Now that we have added more press and bindery capacity to our vast array of services, we feel that Line & Tone is the perfect home for serious account executives who understand the concept of consultative selling," says Del Nunzio. "We firmly believe that a graphic services provider needs to be more than an order-taking vendor to its customers. It needs to be a partner in all phases of planning and production. Our account people work with clients to offer all of our services throughout each phase of a project. For instance, a product launch can involve brochures, spec sheets and mailings. If we are pro-active in our consultative selling approach, we would also provide the product photography, art creation, test marketing/focus group short-run printing, meeting posters & banners, and even sales aids from our premium and incentive division." "It's all about being involved in the client's conception and planning stage versus being a quote-taker at the end that makes the difference. We have the right services and support for this type of approach," said Del Nunzio. All of the following services are produced in-house at Line & Tone's facilities: Traditional Offset Printing Hi-Fi, Digital & Traditional Offset Printing Eight Heidelberg Sheetfed Offset Presses up to 28x40", 8-color with Coaters and Perfectors Polar, Stahl, C.P. Bourg, Standard and Challenge Bindery Systems PANTONE Hexachrome Six-Color Hi-Fi Color Printing Licensed Pantone Printer On-Demand Digital Printing Heidelberg QuickMaster DI Digital Offset Press Xerox Digital Short Run Printing on DocuColor 2000s, 40s and 12s On-Demand Bindery including Folding, Scoring, Spiral Binding and Saddle Stitching Wide Variety of House Paper Stocks up to 12 Point C2S Color Electronic Prepress Scitex EverSmart, Heidelberg 8200 Primescan and Hell Chromagraph S3900 Drum Color Scanning High-End Color Prepress, Trapping, Assembly and Imaging Color Retouching and Artistic Airbrushing 3D Rendering and Art Creation Dupont Waterproof and CV (PMS) Proofing PANTONE Hexachrome Hi-Fi Color Prepress Desktop Postscript Digital Color Imaging Macintosh or PC/Windows Film Separations to 35.7 x 44.5" Imation Digital Laser Matchprint Proofing Imation Matchprint Contact Proofing and Blueprints Rampage Trapping, Assembly, Layout and Imposition Traditional High-Line Screen, Waterless and Stochastic Screening Custom Typesetting and Creative Services Authorized Quark and Adobe Prepress Providers High End Digital Photography Studio Sinar 4x5" View Camera with Scitex Leaf Volare Digital Back Cambo 4x5" View Camera with PhaseOne PhotoPhasePlus Digital Back Pascal Daumas, prominent still-life photographer Large Format Inkjet Poster Imaging Colorspan DisplayMaker XII 72 1200 DPI 6-color Inkjet Prints to 72" Iris Inkjet High Quality Digital Proof and Art Prints HP 600 DPI Color Inkjet Prints to 52" Magnetic Presentation Boards Gloss or Matte Paper, Artist Canvas, Vinyl, Floor Graphics and Perforated Vinyl Digital C-Prints Cymbolic Sciences Lightjet 5000 to 50x50" or 48x96" Gloss & Matte Paper, Duratrans, and Duraflex Materials Praxisoft Color Management Traditional C-Prints and B&W Prints Mounting, Laminating and Finishing White or Black Foamcore, Gator or Sintra, Jet Mount, Illustration Board and Plexiglass Mounting 3, 5, 10, 15, 30 mil Matte, Lustre and Gloss Laminations EZ Writable, Textured Floor Guard and Stoplight Deep Crystal Laminations Mailing and Fulfillment Inventory management, also known as pick-and-pack services. All inventory is uniquely identified and tracked. Orders generated are quickly and efficiently processed for shipping, according to preset guidelines. Machine and hand assembly of kits, including unique shapes and requirements such as triple-match labeling. Automatic wafer sealing, inserting, and sealing. List services, conversion from any database format, on-line receipt of data, CASS (postal) certification & sorting for the maximum postal discount and barcoding for increased deliverability. Ink jet addressing or label output and application. Mailing & delivery directly to the Post Office, imprinted with our postal indicia. All pieces are checked against postal regulations. Data processing & data mining via custom programs that analyze incoming data according to algorithms, and then drive the output of unique correspondence that accompanies product literature and samples to the end-use client. Other Services 35MM Slide Presentation Design and Imaging Powerpoint Projection Presentation Design Advertising Specialties, Incentives and Premiums Web Site Design and Programming Affiliates FTP T-1 Site, WamNet and XiNet WebNative File Transfer Services CDROM Archiving and Digital Asset Management Open 24 Hours with All Services In-House Messengers On Staff A Win-Win Deal for ALL Nosrat Khansari sees the deal as a natural progression in the growth of the company he founded in 1972. "This is a win-win deal for the companies and our clients, but it is also a win-win deal for our account people and all of our employees. By offering more services and capacity to clients, our account executives can be more valuable to their clients and sell more of the same high quality products for a broader array of projects."