Industrial supplies master distributor ORS Nasco has acquired three prominent JanSan private-label brands from Essendant as the latter continues to pursue asset sales amid a possible company shutdown.

ORS President and CEO Kevin Short announced the acquisition of Boardwalk, GEN and Windsoft in a Sept. 23 LinkedIn post. No formal news release has been issued, and financial terms and other transaction details were not disclosed.

Short said the brands will broaden ORS’ assortment and further connect its industrial and JanSan offerings while maintaining the company’s wholesale-only model.

“Boardwalk, GEN and Windsoft are established and trusted. We’re super excited to add them to our assortment and give our distributor customers an even more complete one-stop shop,” Short wrote. “Bringing janitorial and industrial together is a natural fit.”

The three brands give ORS a sizable collection of proprietary JanSan and foodservice products:

• Boardwalk is the broadest of the three, with more than 1,000 JanSan and industrial products spanning can liners, chemicals, facility supplies, napkins, personal care, safety products, towels and tissue and wipers. Its foodservice portfolio includes more than 250 items.
• GEN is positioned around value-priced products for restaurants, airports, shopping centers and other high-volume facilities. Its assortment includes can liners, napkins, paper towels, facial and bathroom tissue and towel and tissue dispensers.
• Windsoft specializes in commercial towel and tissue products, including center-pull, folded, hardwound and kitchen roll towels, along with facial tissue and standard and jumbo-roll bath tissue.

The deal continues an aggressive expansion stretch for ORS since private equity firm Wynnchurch Capital acquired the Tulsa, OK-based company from One Equity Partners in August 2024.

ORS acquired safety products redistributor R3 Safety in February 2025 and welding products supplier and manufacturer Techniweld USA that May. This past March, it added AD Member Supply and Alliance Distribution Partners, representing its third and fourth acquisitions under Wynnchurch ownership. ORS at the time described itself as North America’s largest master wholesaler of industrial MRO products, supplying approximately 190,000 SKUs from more than 250 OEMs through 13 distribution centers.

Essendant Asset Sales Take Shape

The transaction carries added significance because Boardwalk, GEN and Windsoft were supposed to be important components of Essendant’s own future.

When Essendant launched its “New Way Forward” strategy in fall 2025, it began exiting its traditional office products business to concentrate on JanSan, foodservice and technology. The company specifically told customers that Boardwalk, GEN and Windsoft would “continue to expand” as it built its go-forward assortment around those categories.

Less than a year later, all three brands are leaving the company.

MDM reported Aug. 11 that Essendant was exploring strategic alternatives, including potential transactions involving company assets and operations, while seeking additional capital to avoid liquidation. WARN notices covering facilities and employees across several states pointed toward more than 1,100 job cuts and raised the possibility that the Staples subsidiary could cease operations.

Subsequent reporting has made that outlook more concrete. The Chicago Tribune reported Sept. 4 that Essendant was winding down operations and laying off nearly 1,300 employees across six states, while the Illinois Department of Labor was investigating allegations that hundreds of employees were terminated earlier than scheduled under WARN notices.

On Sept. 18, the Daily Herald reported that Essendant plans to close its Lincolnshire, IL, headquarters, affecting 200 on-site employees and 310 remote workers. In its notification to Illinois officials, Essendant said it had pursued asset and operations sales and additional capital but expected to cease operations and close the business if those efforts were unsuccessful.

The ORS transaction now provides a tangible example of that asset-sale process taking place.

MDM Analysis

For ORS, Essendant’s retrenchment creates an opportunity to bring established proprietary brands into a growing master-distribution platform that already serves many of the same industrial, MRO and JanSan channels. The acquisition gives those brands a new wholesale home while adding further scale and category breadth to ORS’ expansion under Wynnchurch.