ENGLEWOOD, Colo., June 13 With the goal of increasing value for shareowners, Mail-Well, Inc. announced today its new strategic direction. Following a 90 day review of how best to serve customer, employee and shareholder interests, the new direction will result in the following changes with the financial goal of achieving 15-20% annual EPS growth over the next five years: -- Mail-Well will concentrate resources on its two largest segments: envelopes and commercial printing. -- Mail-Well will sell its smaller label and printed office products segments. -- Mail-Well's 2001 sales, excluding the business unit divestitures, are expected to be approximately $1.6 billion. -- The proceeds from the divestitures, which the company expects to complete within the next 12 months, will be used to decrease Mail-Well's debt, with a debt-to-total capital goal of less than 55% by the end of 2003. -- To improve productivity, utilization, and sales coordination, Mail-Well Envelope will close nine existing U.S. plants and move the business and necessary equipment into the remaining 27 envelope operations. The plan is to grow total envelope sales while consolidating. The consolidation plan, together with the implementation of best practices within the remaining envelope plant and the commercial print plants, are expected to provide estimated annual operating savings of $38 million when fully implemented. The one-time cash cost of the consolidation will be $43 million in 2001 and $4 million to complete the consolidation in 2002. -- Mail-Well will continue its acquisition program, but with a sharpened focus on building local general commercial printing market share and on further consolidating the envelope industry. -- All acquisitions will be evaluated with strict leverage and cost of capital criteria -- 45%-55% debt-to-total capital ratio target and earnings in excess of Mail-Well's 12% after-tax cost of capital. "Growing in seven years from $16 million in annual sales to $2.4 billion is a major achievement for any public company,'' said Paul Reilly, chief executive officer and president of Mail-Well. "But the Mail-Well of the future, while still committed to growth in multi-billion dollar markets, must be a more disciplined and strategically focused Mail-Well with even greater emphasis on improving our competitive position and return on capital.'' Reilly emphasized that the label and printed office products businesses are well-managed, profitable organizations and are leaders in their respective markets. "We must simplify our business and sharpen our strategic focus to compete more effectively as one company and to address investor confusion over multiple product lines,'' he explained. "The general commercial printing and envelope markets offer Mail-Well the best opportunities to leverage our current size and leadership position for sales growth and profit expansion going forward.''