Packaging Holdings Announces the Acquisition of Hamilton Printing

Packaging Holdings, Inc., a specialty printing and packaging company and a portfolio company of Bear Stearns Merchant Banking, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Hamilton Printing, Inc. Hamilton Printing is headquartered in Louisville, KY and provides multimedia and commercial print solutions for products including video games and computer software. The acquisition will be integrated with Packaging Holdings’ Multi Packaging Solutions (“MPS”) division. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Marc Shore, Packaging Holdings’ Chief Executive Officer commented, “We are excited about the expansion of Packaging Holdings with this acquisition. Hamilton Printing is a distinguished multimedia packaging supplier with an outstanding team and print capabilities.”

Steven Bass, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hamilton Printing stated, “Randy Bloch and I are pleased to be a part of Packaging Holdings. This combination is a strong match for our business and will provide Hamilton with the opportunity to better serve our growing customer base. Packaging Holdings will provide substantial incremental resources to support Hamilton’s growth with initial plans to add significant new equipment and capabilities to our facility including an eight color perfecting press scheduled to begin operating in October. We expect more equipment following soon thereafter which will increase our capacity and services.”

About Packaging Holdings
Packaging Holdings serves as Bear Stearns Merchant Banking’s specialty printing investment vehicle and owns The John Henry Company, a manufacturer of pharmaceutical as well as horticulture and floral products and packaging. Packaging Holdings’ MPS division focuses on the multimedia industry, which includes packaging and design for the music, movie, video game and computer software markets. Marc Shore serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Packaging Holdings. Mr. Shore served as the CEO and Chairman of Shorewood Packaging until its acquisition by International Paper in 2000, where he continued as an officer from 2000 to 2004.

About Hamilton Printing
Hamilton Printing is a full-service sheet fed printer founded in 1938, specializing in high quality multi-color printing such as annual reports, point of purchase displays, sales sheets, booklets, manuals, serialization and dual security source tags for the video game industry. The Company is located in Louisville, KY and employs 140 people. Customers include: Electronic Arts, Heaven Hill Distilleries, Brown Forman, General Electric, HUMANA, BellSouth, Yum Brands, Lexmark, RJ Reynolds and several of the regional top advertising and creative agencies. More information on Hamilton can be found at www.hamiltonprinting.com.