Pitney Bowes US set to buy Ancora Capital
Pitney Bowes Inc., the world’s largest producer of postage meters, said Monday it plans to purchase assets of Ancora Capital & Management Group LLC, which has a mail facility in Baltimore.
The Stamford, Conn.-based firm plans to pay about USD35 million in cash and assumed debt for the provider of first-class, standard-letter and international mail processing and presort services. Ancora, headquartered in San Fernando, Calif., has five operations in southern California, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The assets will become part of Pitney Bowes’ PSI operation and its national presort network, the nation’s largest with 25 locations, including one in Rockville.
The purchase continues the consolidation of a largely fragmented industry. Presorting businesses bundle mail from different sources to win discounts from the U.S. Postal Service.
“If you’re putting out hundreds of thousand of pieces a day, you are very incentivized by the Post Office to go through this presorting process,” Pitney Bowes spokesman Matthew Broder told the (Baltimore) Daily Record. First-class postage drops from 37 cents to 29.2 cents per letter when presorted.
Pitney Bowes, which posted earnings of USD498.1 million on sales of USD4.58 billion in 2003, employs more than 32,000 workers in more than 130 countries.
Pitney Bowes declined to comment on how the deal it expects to close within 30 days would affect the 900 workers at Ancora’s facilities.
