Gary Willert
Last week LMI Solutions (LMI), an R2 certified remanufacturer, distributor and recycler of replacement monochrome and color toner cartridges, announced that it had acquired Printersdirect LLC. Printersdirect remanufactures premium quality business printers. Printersdirect clients include the leading distributors of imaging supplies and parts in North America and sells under the MPS Ready brand. The acquisition comes shortly after LMI’s purchase of Global Printer Services (GPS), which consolidates two of the top providers of remanufactured printer hardware.
Yesterday I had an opportunity to speak with Gary Willert, President and CEO of LMI Solutions to get a better understanding of what these acquisitions mean to LMI and its customer base as well as future acquisition opportunities for the company.
You’ve been busy with all these acquisitions, what made Printersdirect and GPS good acquisition targets for LMI?
Willert: They’re both leading companies in the remanufactured printer industry with different go-to-market strategies. It’s not only the companies themselves, but the people running them. They are solid industry people who have been doing this for a long time. They build not only great products, but have great minds and great ideas. Remanufactured printers have not been utilized by a lot of companies and I think we’re going to need capacity and this allows us to [have] more capacity. The future for [reman] printers is bright.
You mentioned Printersdirect and GPS have different go-to-market strategies, what’s the difference?
Willert: They have different distribution models and at the end of the day we want to support all of our partners and customers to be able to sell printers to either our dealers or through distributors to their dealers. We’re committed to the channel and we think there’s a real opportunity to do more in the space. It’s been a little bit ignored and we think there’s tremendous profit potential for dealers.
How will your customers benefit from these acquisitions?
Willert: As the three companies join forces, customers can leverage a complete end-to-end strategy to grow recurring revenues and profitability with top quality remanufactured printers, remanufactured toner, and managed print infrastructure services.
These acquisitions appear to strengthen the LMI brand, would you agree?
Willert: I think so. Many of our customers are MPS providers. What we’re seeing now more than ever is a lot of these MPS providers, whether it’s dealers, distributors, whomever, they’re managing these fleets and these fleets are all over the board in terms of old and new printers. There’s no consistency. You can’t change things immediately, however, there are some printers that have a high cost of ownership that can be replaced and would put more money in the dealer’s pocket by replacing them [with a remanufactured printer]. We want to educate dealers on how to improve their profitability by doing that rather than buying another OEM product.
I understand you see some synchronicity between the remanufactured cartridge business and the remanufactured printer business?
Willert: What’s interesting and what we’ve found out is there’s an art to remanufacturing a printer. It’s not an assembly line or cookie cutter process; it’s similar to cartridges, which fits well with what we know. Both companies produce high-quality products and do it in different ways. By combining the companies we’re combining some good best practices and we’re going to produce an even better quality product going forward.
What’s the most challenging aspect of doing an acquisition?
Willert: Integrating the people and the culture, and making sure everyone knows what their roles are and going forward towards the same goals. What made it easier for me and LMI is these guys all had similar ideas of what that culture looks like. They’re quality driven, have a strong work ethic, and strong morals and ethics because that’s the reputation we try to have in the field. We want to maintain that and they fit in perfectly.
Do you enjoy doing acquisitions?
Willert: It’s fun and easier when I have good people on board. I couldn’t be happier with the employees—they’re all solid, bright employees. They have a lot of ideas and are a perfect fit for where we want to go.
Do you anticipate more acquisitions in the future?
Willert: Absolutely.
Any hints as to what types of businesses you might be looking to acquire?
Willert: We’re going to be looking at different opportunities, and we are looking currently. If we see a fit, whether it’s a like product or not a like product, whatever can add value to our shareholders that’s what we want to do.
Now that these acquisitions are complete, what kind of growth are you expecting for LMI this year?
Willert: We’re up year over year about 25 percent just with our own internal organic growth. If we add Printersdirect and GPS, that’s going to add another 20 percent or so. We’ll see some significant growth once we have them on board for a full year.
