"We were looking for ways to expand and while we’ve had some good organic growth we wanted to do something that would give us a little leap," Canfield & Tack Chairman Ray Brown told PrintWeek in an interview.

"It's also a good fit geographically — Syracuse is about an hour from our home in Rochester and this will enable us to extend our reach into central upstate New York."

Brown noted that fortunately the two firms had very little customer overlap and were running similar presses. "We have four 40-inch Komoris and then a smaller format Heidelberg," he elaborated. "At Dellas they have a 40-inch Komori and on the digital side Nexpress and Digimaster, which is exactly what we’ve got. So the additional presses will boost everybody’s capabilities."

Dellas also features mailing in-house, which will enable Canfield to begin inserting and mailing directly from the facility. "And it also helps vice versa," Brown said. "Dellas does not have die-cutting and folding and gluing in house, while we do, so that’s going to work out for both companies."

Though it would be considered a traditional local printer, Brown said the key to Canfield & Tack’s growth in recent year has been an aggressive move into managed print services for medium to large size companies.

"We operate a main plant of 45,000 square feet and then we have a 40,000 square foot fulfillment center and what we’re doing is looking at medium to large size companies both here in upstate New York as well as regionally in the Northeast and managing their print for them," he said.

"We have online systems that are all tied into our digital presses and also into our fulfillment center. And we have corporate customers such as Smith & Wesson where their sales representatives can come online and order printed materials as well as non-print materials such as displays, tchotchkes and other products."

"We’re not a broker," he continued. "We do all the work ourselves whenever possible and I am amazed at how many companies that we go into that are dying for this kind of service. We’re looking at companies in the middle of the print market, with $1m to $10m in annual print spend."

Founded in 1926, Canfield & Tack is one of the region’s oldest continually operating printing companies and maintains sales offices in New York City and Washington, DC. Canfield & Tack has a staff of 75, bringing total employment with the acquisition to more than 100.

Brown said the combined companies will generate $20m annually, making it the general commercial printer in upstate New York.  "I can’t tell you how excited the sales reps are, particularly in Syracuse, to sell our additional capabilities and services," Brown said. "We’re very optimistic about next year."