Essendant has sold its Boardwalk, Gen, and Windsoft private-label janitorial and facility supply brands to ORS Nasco, the latest move in the Deerfield, Illinois-based distributor’s ongoing retreat from the office products and facilities supplies market.
The divestiture comes as Essendant faces a lawsuit from TD Synnex, which alleges the former stopped making payments owed under an earlier legal settlement.
In addition, Essendant has filed WARN Act notices in several states announcing layoffs that could, according to the company, be a precursor to a complete closure. Selling off the brands appears to be part of the unwind.
Why ORS Nasco is acquiring Essendant’s brands
Kevin Short, CEO of ORS Nasco, shared his enthusiasm for the purchase.
“Boardwalk, GEN, and Windsoft are established and trusted,” he wrote in an announcement on LinkedIn. “We’re super excited to add them to our assortment and give our distributor customers an even more complete one stop shop.”
Essendant hasn’t made any public comments and did not return a message from Digital Commerce 360 seeking comment.
Essendant had been retreating from office products distribution, which was its mainstay for many years. The pullback was announced as something that would help the company focus on building up its digital commerce portfolio. However, as Digital Commerce 360 previously reported, Essendant expanded its Connected Commerce program.
That program integrated its national fulfillment network and digital infrastructure. Its goal was to help brands and resellers manage product data, inventory visibility and pricing across multiple channels.
That framing dates back to the strategy’s original rollout. More recently, however, Essendant’s public filings and WARN Act notices point less to a digital pivot and more to a company managing a potential liquidity crisis, with layoffs and asset sales now overshadowing the original growth narrative.
What Essendant selling off brands means for distribution more broadly
Joel Goldstein, president of Mr. Checkout Distributors, has spent a long time inside distribution and watched distributors sell off pieces of themselves before. Mr. Checkout Distributors runs a national network of independent distributors.
“When a distributor sells its private label brands, it’s selling the most profitable and most portable thing it owns,” Goldstein said.
He noted that private label is where a distributor’s margin lives.
That’s “because there’s no manufacturer brand in the middle taking a cut, and the brands can change hands without the trucks or the warehouses coming along,” he stated. “A company already leaving a category doesn’t need those brands, and a buyer still serving that category will pay for them.”
Goldstein added that he reads this deal as a company finishing an exit and turning the last valuable pieces of that business into cash, not a company changing direction.
Litigation concerns at Essendant
The ongoing litigation that Essendant faces also changes the calculus, according to Goldstein.
“Litigation changes the order in which a distributor sells things and how hard it can negotiate,” he noted
Moreover, he said a distributor with a payment dispute hanging over it has an incentivize to sell whatever closes quickly and cleanly.
“And brands with their own trademarks and inventory fit that far better than customer relationships or a warehouse lease,” Goldstein said.
He also observed that it shrinks the buyer pool, as the buyers who show up know the seller has a clock ticking.
“And that shows up in the price,” he stated. “The thing to watch is what’s left behind, because once the brands and the office products are gone, the remaining business has to stand on its own, and that’s usually when the harder restructuring conversations start.”
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