Pitney Bowes (NYSE: PBI) is acquiring logistics company Newgistics Inc., from private equity firm Littlejohn & Co., for $475 million. The buyer intends to operate the business as an independent unit into the first quarter of 2018 to avoid disruptions during the holiday shopping season.

Newgistics provides more than 500 retail clients with e-commerce logistics and parcel services through nine operating facilities. The Austin, Texas-based company provides a variety of services, including: digital commerce development, deep analytics, relationship management, systems integration, fulfillment, parcel delivery and returns management. Newgistics is a workshare partner of the United States Postal Services (USPS) and processes nearly 100 million parcels each year, according to the company.

“Newgistics fits uniquely at the intersection of our parcel growth strategies and will accelerate the overall transformation of Pitney Bowes,” states Pitney Bowes CEO Marc Lautenbach. “This acquisition – combined with recent innovations in mailing and shipping for SMB clients, organic growth of our Global Ecommerce business, and expansion of our presort and parcel services network – definitively anchors Pitney Bowes in a growing space and vastly increases the value we can deliver for our clients.”

Founded in 1920, Houston-based Pitney Bowes offers mail processing equipment, mail supply services and software. Parcel volume, according to Lautenbach, has increased globally by 48 percent over the past two years and is expected to grow at least another 17 percent by 2021. In addition to the Newgistics deal, Pitney Bowes announced the opening of a new presort services operating center in Huntington Beach, California. The new facility will help Pitney Bowes to further expand in the U.S. domestic parcel industry.

Littlejohn is a Greenwich, Connecticut-based investment advisory firm that backs middle-market companies seeking a change in capital structure, strategy, operations or growth. The firm is currently investing from Littlejohn Fund V, the firm's fifth fund with nearly $2 billion in capital commitments.

Littlejohn has remained active throughout 2017. The PE firm recently bought chemicals producer Cornerstone from HIG Capital; purchased money vault maker Tidel; bought sheet metal producer Maysteel; and acquired patio furniture manufacturer Brown Jordan International in January 2017. Littlejohn also raised a $406 million collateralized loan obligation fund (CLO), called Wellfleet CLO 2016-2 in November 2016.