Monday, June 22, Philadelphia—In a briefing on the buyout of Norwood Promotional Products, Indianapolis, by Clearwater, Florida-based BIC Graphic USA, Norwood Promotional Products CEO Paul Lage spoke with Promo Marketing’s editorial director, Nichole Stella, to discuss the impact the buyout could have on the company’s future as well as on present operations. “The simplest way to make this work right now is to operate as two super companies,” Lage noted.
When asked what is the most important point distributors and trade vendors in the industry should know, Lage stated, “It is business as usual. BIC and Norwood bring a lot of the same strengths to the marketplace, but will be able to share best practices and be even better collectively.”
He also went on to explain that the Norwood Promotional Products brand and locations will remain consistent with its own separate sales force, and affirmed, “No layoffs are anticipated with the buyout.”
BIC Graphic USA’s $125 million buyout, which comes with an additional estimated $37.5 million in assumed liabilities, was not completely unexpected. “We’d been engaged with the BIC people for about a month prior to this,” noted Lage. While it was initially anticipated that Aurora Capital Group would be the high bidder, all other potential buyers worked off of the Aurora Capital Group agreement. “Things that we negotiated early on, which included a significant payout to all of our vendors, were already pre-negotiated prior to going into this auction,” explained Lage.
Norwood Promotional Products is expected to emerge from bankruptcy with the final closing taking place on or before July 15th. However, Lage expressed, “Functionally, we are done now. We know who our owner is and all the pieces of the deal have been decided on. It’s just a matter of doing the technical parts of closing the deal.”
Lage, a 13-year veteran of BIC Graphic USA prior to joining Norwood Promotional Products, is familiar with both companies’ corporate cultures and business practices, and expressed saisfaction in how the chapter 11 filing and subsequent purchase deal were handled. “We all acted responsibly in our approach to this whole event,” he said. “All of our trade vendors will basically be paid in full. I think that is a credit to BIC and their approach and philosophy in business.”
While a great deal remains to be seen in how the transition in ownership will occur and how the two companies work with each other, Lage stated, “There is a big picture here that it’s a little premature to say what it’s going to look like. But I can say it is two great organizations coming together and everybody is very excited about what the potential is.”
For more information on Norwood, visit www.norwood.com.
