Los Angeles-based private equity firm Triton Pacific Capital Partners LLC acquired a majority interest in Irvine-based commercial printer MyPrint Corp. and its online print management division eTools LLC last month.
The acquisition comes after MyPrint spent months courting other private and public commercial printing companies and private equity firms for a possible sale.
Los Angeles-based investment bank B. Riley & Co. served as an adviser to MyPrint for the transaction.
Triton Pacific didn’t disclose what it spent on its stake in the company.
MyPrint ranks No. 5 among the largest commercial printers here with an estimated $25 million in revenue, according to the Business Journal’s most recent list in May.
Triton Pacific cited MyPrint’s eTools software as one of the top reasons for its investment in the printing company.
The online software lets customers order, customize and track print-on-demand marketing materials, stationery and more.
“The functionality of MyPrint’s eTools offering is unique among other companies within the commercial printing, promotional products and fulfillment industries,” said Fred Thiel, managing partner at Triton Pacific and former chief executive of Irvine-based networking device maker Lantronix Inc.
Triton plans to be involved in operations at MyPrint. There are no immediate plans for management changes at the formerly family-owned company.
“I’m going to remain in place and run the business,” said Jeff Carlson, president at MyPrint. “All the former owners are still onboard in sales and management capacities.”
The commercial printer has felt an industrywide drop in business as advertisers and companies have cut back on printing.
“We’ve been fortunate that we have a diverse customer mix that has helped us weather the downturn,” Carlson said.
The printer has seen a spike in business with its eTools software, he said.
“We’ve seen more companies interested in using our technology to track costs and keep a firm eye on marketing budgets,” Carlson said.
Companies that use the software include restaurant chains Glendale-based DineEquity Inc., parent of International House of Pancakes, and Colorado-based Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Inc.
“It’s really caused us to be in a position to grow beyond what you think a local or regional printer might do,” Carlson said.
Chicken Wars Cluck On
El Pollo Loco Inc. and KFC Corp. are going another round in the battle for the lightweight title in grilled chicken.
On the heels of KFC’s latest chicken giveaway last month—which offered a free piece of chicken to customers in its third promotion since April—Costa Mesa-based El Pollo Loco launched another competing free-chicken offer on the same day.
The Mexican-style chicken chain ran a contest that gave someone free chicken for a year.
It’s not the first time the chain has used a KFC giveaway to push one of its own.
“It’s gotten some TV coverage alongside KFC’s giveaway, and since we’re much smaller than KFC, this provides us a great way to get the word out about our chicken,” said Julie Weeks, spokeswoman at El Pollo Loco.
As part of the promotion, El Pollo Loco hosted a Facebook and Twitter contest asking fans to explain “why flame-grilled chicken is better than oven ‘grilled’ chicken,” pointing out its major point of differentiation—flame grilling—from KFC.
KFC’s grilled chicken actually is cooked in a special oven.
El Pollo Loco also cooks its chicken in an oven but then finishes it over an open flame.
The winner is expected to receive 52 coupons for El Pollo Loco chicken.
The chain received more than 800 entries in the contest.
El Pollo Loco had little time to build the contest. The chicken chain found out about KFC’s third giveaway a few days before it happened.
“We had to act quickly,” Weeks said.
It continued a marketing feud between the two chicken chains that began in April when El Pollo Loco challenged KFC, part of Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc., to a taste test after KFC’s grilled chicken debuted.
KFC, known for fried chicken, rolled out its grilled chicken with a marketing stunt offering a piece of free chicken to anyone who came to the restaurant.
El Pollo Loco fired back with its “Taste the Fire Challenge” and gave away two pieces.
Freedom’s Hispanic Papers
Last week, Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc. said it plans to shut down its Phoenix-area paper, the East Valley Tribune, by year’s end.
A few weeks before that, Freedom killed La Frontera, a Spanish-language newspaper serving southern Texas.
Both papers were victims of the economic downturn, which has led to dramatic drops in print advertising, as well as Freedom’s own restructuring.
The company filed for bankruptcy in September.
Locally, Freedom has kept weekly Spanish-language newspaper Excelsior up and running. But it too has felt the effects of the downturn.
“Like many other media categories, Excelsior and ocexecelsior.com have been challenged by steep declines in ad spending,” said Eric Morgan, a spokesman for Freedom Communications.
Advertisers continue to shift ad budgets away from print and into cheaper online ads. Many Spanish-language newspapers run Web sites, but many readers haven’t made the switch to online news.
Freedom wouldn’t disclose revenue or profit numbers for Excelsior, which has seen a 23% year-over-year increase in readership, according to New York-based research company Scarborough Research.
The paper ranked 24th among U.S. Hispanic newspapers by advertising revenue. It counted more than $2 million in revenue in 2008, down about 3% from a year earlier, according to Ad-vertising Age. La Frontera did not make the list.
