As of this writing, all is quiet at this St. Paul–based document-management company. That’s because Merrill Corporation is planning to announce an initial public offering. (It registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February and filed to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.)
Maybe “initial” isn’t the right word: Merrill was a public company before, from 1986 to 1999. And Merrill has been a quiet company for a long time—it’s not well known locally, despite expanding from the printing of financial-transaction documents into marketing and related services and growing to annual sales of nearly $1 billion. If the IPO goes forward (which may have happened by the time you read this), it could raise more than $200 million—and Merrill’s profile. The proceeds would help pay off millions of dollars in debt, much of it incurred with the purchase of Boston-based WordWave last year, a company that provides litigation and related services to law firms, courts, companies, and public agencies.
