New York Companies Plan Merger



Syracuse Label & Surround Printing, Macaran Printed Products, and W.N. Van Alstine & Sons Inc. recently announced that they plan a merger in a deal that will create an employee-owned company.

“A critical aspect of the merger is the continued development and support of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP),” the companies say in a news release.

The ESOP ownership structure was adopted by Syracuse Label Surround Printing in 2007 and Macaran/Van Alstine in 2017.

Nick Van Alstine of Macaran/Van Alstine and Kathy Alaimo of Syracuse will be co-CEOs. Effective December 31, Alaimo and Alstine will retire and assume roles as co-chairs of the board of directors. Tom Sargent will assume the CEO position effective January 1, 2023.

“I have known Nick Van Alstine, and we’ve been friendly competitors for over 20 years,” Alaimo says. “This friendship and mutual trust evolved into a conversation about how similar our companies were, and what an exciting opportunity we had to support future growth for our employee-owners.”

The merger will create a new organization with three facilities, 165,000-square-feet of manufacturing space, 175 full-time employee owners, and $65 million in sales.

Headquartered in Cohoes, New York, Macaran Printed Products is a third-generation, employee-owned supplier of label and packaging solutions for the spirits, craft beer, non-alcoholic beverage, household products, health, beauty, and medical markets.

A Macaran sister company, W.N. Van Alstine & Sons was founded in 1950 as a paper and packaging distribution firm. Today, it provides customers with end-of-line packaging systems, equipment, service, and related materials.

Syracuse Label & Surround Printing is an independent label converter, offering digital and flexographic printing solutions with a product portfolio that includes flexible packaging, shrink sleeves, pressure-sensitive labels, cartons, hang tags, roll-fed wrap labels, and other custom-made printed products.