Philadelphia, PA. New Direction Partners, the leading mergers & acquisitions resource for the printing and packaging industries, today reported that it represented HONBLUE in its recent sale to private buyers from the technology industry. HONBLUE, originally founded 58 years ago and now in its second generation of Heim family ownership, began as a blueprint shop operating under the name Honolulu Blueprinting and Supply. HONBLUE is the largest printing operation in Hawaii.

With the principals now in their mid-sixties with no third generation to run the business, the company was looking for a buyer that could fit its culture, and take care of its employees and customers, according to CFO Harvey Rackmil. He first encountered New Direction Partners at a printing trade group webinar meeting, where they were presenting on succession planning. “We had been discussing as an executive team that a potential buyer would most probably be a mainland buyer within our industry, so it made sense have a company representing us that knows the printing and packaging industries,” he said.

Tom Williams, Partner at New Direction Partners, first brought HONBLUE a potential buyer out of California, but the owner didn’t have the employee bandwidth to drop anyone into the HONBLUE operation. So, it was back to the drawing board.

Rackmil adds, “Meanwhile, two gentlemen in Seattle, entrepreneurs who had been in the tech business, wanted to go into business together and were looking to purchase a commercial printing business. They were working a deal with New Direction Partners that fell through, and Tom suggested HONBLUE. It just so happened that one of them was coming to Hawaii for a wedding the next week, and the conversations began.”

The deal was ultimately completed, and Rackmil has remained with the company as CFO, a role he had held for 22 years. “Rackmil concluded, ““It turned out to be a totally different kind of buyer than HONBLUE was thinking about, but they brought a lot of business expertise from their years working at larger companies. We are all excited about the future of HONBLUE under the new ownership. We thank Tom Williams and New Direction Partners for making this introduction that led to the ultimate ownership transition.” Read the full story here.

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