For printing ink manufacturers, 2000 marked the year when rising raw material prices and other costs forced ink prices to rise. For many companies, the final piece was the price of pigments; when the price of pigments increased at the end of 2000, the price of ink had to follow suit. As one top ink executive put it, “Every pigment company seemed to want to raise its prices in January.” Consolidations also occurred, as a number of pigment manufacturers acquired smaller companies in order to...