Company acquires six firms in four years for a complete platform of services.

Philadelphia Pa. – New Direction Partners, the leading mergers & acquisitions resource for the printing and packaging industries, today reported it has represented a number of sellers whose businesses have been sold to Traxium LLC over the past four years. Traxium LLC was formed in 2014 by George Schmutz. His vision was to bring together industry-leading printing and marketing companies with a combined result that would allow TRAXIUM to better meet the needs of their customers, while allowing customers to stay efficient and targeted in their marketing efforts.

Schmutz worked in the printing industry for 40 years, beginning at age 13. From 2006 to 2013, he was president of a media and logistics company. “I decided I liked the printing industry better,” he says, “and I divested myself and started looking for a printing company I could buy on which to build a platform. I knew Jim Russell from New Direction Partners from some previous acquisition efforts, and I was very comfortable working with him during his representation of a number of different sellers.”

New Direction Partners represented the sellers in these five Traxium LLC acquisitions:

• Printing Concepts (Akron) in 2014, the base platform for forming Traxium LLC.
• Newhouse Printing and Marketing (Dover OH) in July 2016.
• Galapagos Marketing (Grand Rapids), October 2017.
• Great Lakes Integrated (Cleveland OH) in April 2018
• Watt Printing (Cleveland OH) in April 2018.

This brings Traxium LLC to over 200 employees, including about 50 temporary workers at Great Lakes Direct, across six locations in the Midwest. “We will combine locations for Great Lakes Cleveland and Watt in the Watt location over the next six months, “Schmutz reports, “with no effect on overall employment. In fact, going into 2019, we expect to be adding employees.”

Schmutz’s strategy positions printing as just one leg of what Traxium LLC does. “We are a communications company,” he says, “and our goal is to help clients sell products, through printed materials, marketing services, data analytics and branding strategy.”

“It has been a pleasure for us and our seller clients to work with George as he builds this outstanding organization,” said Jim Russell, Partner at New Direction Partners. “His vision for the industry and for his business is refreshing, and while the next stage of growth is likely to be organic, we look forward to working with him again should additional acquisition opportunities arise.” Schmutz indicates that the next stage of acquisitions will likely involve other geographic regions within the country.

According to Schmutz, New Direction Partners was “great to work with. They are very nice, fair and genuine people who truly are looking out for the benefit of both buyer and seller, which in my experience is quite rare. They did a wonderful job, and I would definitely recommend them.”
Schmutz concludes, “We have a unique enough model that I think we can make a difference. We are a good story in an industry that desperately needs one.”

For more information about services available from New Direction Partners, email [email protected] or visit www.NewDirectionPartners.com.