Paragon: RRD price tag revealed

30 October 2019

Business

Paragon Group paid less than a 20th of the price RR Donnelley originally splurged on Astron when it acquired the US firm’s European BPO business earlier this week, Printweek can reveal.

On Monday (28 October) RR Donnelley (RRD) announced that it had sold its $270m (£210m) turnover European Global Document Solutions business to Paragon Group.

Alongside its Q3 results announced today, RRD confirmed that the sale price was $42.3m, or just under £33m.

In 2005 RRD paid $990m – £520m at the time – to acquire the Astron Group of business process outsourcing companies that were the foundation of the GDS business.

RRD said it would use the proceeds of the sale to reduce its debt.

Sales at the operations acquired by Paragon were $185m in the nine months to 30 September.

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