Ha-Lo Industries, Niles, IL, sold its Lipson Alport Glass & Associates branding unit to a management team backed by private-equity funding. The price tag was $25 million in cash, plus future considerations of up to $1.6 million.
LAGA principals Stevan Lipson, Howard Alport, and Allan Glass received financing from Thoma Cressey Equity Partners, Chicago, an investment company whose interests include marketing services aggregator FutureSource Communications. The 54-year-old LAGA has 180 employees and net revenues of about $18 million.
The sale leaves promotion agency Upshot as the lone business in Ha-Lo’s marketing services portfolio, and follows the May sale of telemarketing outfit Market USA to SR Teleperformance for $32.5 million (May 15 XTRA!). Upshot ranked No. 15 on this year’s PROMO 100 with net revenues of $32.9 million.
Ha-Lo acquired the three companies beginning in 1998 in a bid to expand beyond promotional products distribution, but began looking to divest after hitting financial difficulties last year.
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