First Islamic acquires leading American office products company

Headquartered in Plano, near Dallas, Texas, Ampad was founded in 1888 by the inventor of the ruled 'legal pad' and has since become one of the leading US suppliers of writing pads and notebooks, filing supplies, retail envelopes and specialty papers. Ampad markets its products under several recognized brand names such as AMPAD®, Embassy®, evidence®, Globe-Weis®, Gold-Fibre™, Regal Mills® and World Fibre™.

Ampad's customers include many of the largest and fastest growing office product retailers and distributors in North America, including Staples and Wal-Mart. Ampad is a "one-stop-shop" in the estimated US$5 billion North American paper-based office products industry, and is the market leader in the retail channel for each of its four primary product lines.

Atif A. Abdulmalik, First Islamic's Chief Executive Officer, said "We believe that we have acquired a company that has a significant free cash flow generation capability at an attractive price and will allow us to further diversify our investment portfolio."

Mohamed A. Nooruddin, Executive Director, Investment Placement, said "We have identified an experienced senior management team with proven capabilities in rejuvenating under-managed companies. We believe that Ampad has multiple opportunities for sales growth and cost rationalization, allowing the Company to achieve improved financial performance over a relatively short period. "