Pursuits

Jarden to Buy Yearbook Maker Jostens for About $1.5 Billion

  • Jostens, founded in 1897, generates $740 million in sales
  • Jarden will sell other brands through Jostens' 40,000 schools

Students sit with their new yearbooks.

Photographer: Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images
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Jarden Corp., a sprawling consumer-brands company that sells everything from Coleman grills to Rawlings baseball mitts, is adding yearbooks and class rings to its lineup.

The company agreed to pay about $1.5 billion for Visant Holding Corp., which owns the school-memorabilia maker Jostens, from private-equity firms KKR & Co. and APriori Capital Partners. The deal amount, which includes debt, is about 7.5 times Visant’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, Jarden said in a statement WednesdayBloomberg Terminal.