Sanford lp

Sanford L.P.2707 Butterfield RoadOakbrook, Illinois 60523U.S.A.Telephone: (708) 547-6650Toll Free: (800) 323-0749Fax: (708) 547-6719Web site: of Newell RubbermaidIncorporated: 1857 as Sanford Manufacturing CompanyEmployees: 3,000Sales: $1 billion (2006 est.)NAIC: 339942 Lead Pencil and Art Good Manufacturing; 339941 Pen and Mechanical PencilSanford L.P. is a division of Newell Rubbermaid and one of the world's leading makers of both fine and mass-market writing instruments. The company began as an ink manufacturer, established an important brand in mid-century with Sharpie permanent marking pens, and controls a variety of well-known pen, marker, and art supply brands. Sanford makes Accent highlighters, Expo dry erase markers, Prismacolor art markers and pencils, Grumbacher artist's paints and brushes, and the Foohy line of children's markers, colored pencils, pens, and erasers. Sanford also sells the Papermate line of low-end pens, Uni-ball ballpoints, and two lines of high-end pens and fountain pens, Waterman and Parker. Sensa and Rotring are two more lines of writing instruments in the Sanford stable. Sanford has manufacturing facilities in Tennessee, Wisconsin, California, Canada, Mexico, and Thailand, and several locations in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Latin America. It sells its products worldwide.A 19TH-CENTURY INK MAKERSanford started out in Worcester, Massachusetts, the project of two investors, Frederick W. Redington and William H. Sanford, Jr. They founded an ink and glue manufacturing company in 1857, known then simply as the Sanford Manufacturing Co. In 1866, the company moved west, leaving Massachusetts for the booming lakeside town of Chicago. Sanford's factory was damaged five years later in the notorious Great

And Canada over the next 50 years. In 1962, Newell moved its headquarters to Freeport, Illinois, and for the next many years it acquired companies in a variety of industries. By 1992, the year the Sanford acquisition was finalized, Newell owned many prominent consumer brands, including Mirro cookware, Anchor Hocking housewares, and other hardware and so-called do-it-yourself products. The acquisition of Sanford was New-ell's first venture into office supplies. Sanford president Henry Pearsall's rationale for the sale was that Newell had established expertise in dealing with the big discount retailers like Wal-Mart. These were becoming increasingly big players in Sanford's industry, and leaning on Newell's experience seemed a viable move. The sale went through as a stock swap valued at more than $686 million. Sanford then became a division of Newell.COMPANY PERSPECTIVESOffering more than 3,000 products and brands that include Sharpie, Papermate, Uni-ball, Parker, Grumbacher, and Waterman, Sanford is an undisputed leader in the writing instrument and art industry.Over the next three years, parent Newell almost doubled in size, with sales topping $2 billion. This was achieved through a string of acquisitions. The company coined the term "Newellization" for the way it brought struggling companies into its fold, raised profit margins and shed underperforming segments. Newell had concentrated its acquisitions on companies that were not doing well, but Sanford was an exception. Its profit margins had long been stellar. Nevertheless, Newell made changes at Sanford. The new parent added to Sanford by grouping it with other acquisitions, such as the

Growth. In 2001, Newell and Sanford management announced plans to gain a market share of 10 percent in the children's coloring market. This was a market long dominated by Crayola, then owned by Hallmark Cards, which controlled some 75 percent of the market share in children's coloring. Sanford launched a new marketing campaign, aiming to grab a bigger portion of this lucrative market.The Parker and Waterman brands represented another area where Sanford could look to increase sales. The brands still had tremendous recognition, and fine writing instruments were beginning to enjoy something of a comeback. Sanford reissued some classic Parker and Waterman pens, such as the famous Parker 51, which had originally come out in 1939 to celebrate Parker's 51st anniversary. This sold well for Sanford, as did limited edition Waterman reissues. Sanford made a concentrated effort to bring its fine pens into distribution at duty-free shops and other so-called travel-retail outlets, where travelers frequently bought writing instruments as gifts.The Rotring brand also attracted the interest of the travel-retail market. Rotring was a German company founded in 1928. It was best known for its Rapidograph drafting pens. These pens with ultra-fine points had been used by artists, architects, and draftsmen for years, but they faded somewhat as computers replaced hand drawing in these fields. Newell acquired the brand in 1998, where it became part of Sanford. The staid, quotidian Sharpie also had something of a surge in the 2000s. Sanford used the brand name to sponsor a Nascar race in

Chicago Fire, but it was quickly rebuilt. In 1885, the company acquired a patent on a "universal ink stand," a safe and clean container for opened ink. Sanford was a leading brand of what was then an all-important product. Business records and correspondence were all written with fountain pens in this era, and companies, schools, and organizations required constant supplies of fountain pen ink. The company also made other business essentials such as mucilage (rubber cement) and sealing wax. The company apparently did well, and when another fire destroyed its factory in 1899, Sanford had a new factory up and running a year later.GROWTH AT MID-TWENTIETH CENTURYSanford continued to thrive as a privately owned ink manufacturer through the early 20th century. In 1940, the company changed its name from Sanford Manufacturing to the Sanford Ink Company. In 1947, Sanford moved from downtown Chicago to a new, larger location in suburban Bellwood, Illinois. At that time, Sanford had just 100 employees. Annual sales were around $500,000. The company seems to have been quietly profitable. Ownership had dispersed into the hands of five families by the 1960s. The company primarily sold to wholesalers, who in turn sold Sanford products to what was then a still highly fragmented market of small office supply and stationery stores. The company's best-known product came out in 1964, the Sharpie marker. This was a fine-tipped felt pen that boasted indelible black ink. The Sharpie marker soon became ubiquitous, and was joined by a similar marker, the Rub-a-Dub,

Marketed specifically for laundry-marking clothing.Five families held stock in the company, which was chaired in the 1960s by Charles Lofgren. Lofgren's son-in-law, Henry Pearsall, joined Sanford in 1969. At just 23 years old, Pearsall set to work in the purchasing department. Ten years later, Pearsall had risen to president of Sanford. Although Pearsall had married into the business, he evidently had a genuine knack for the writing instruments industry, and Sanford was admirably profitable under his leadership. Sanford kept its costs down by using its own inks in the pens and markers it sold. In addition, the company was clever at investigating many niche products. Sanford made markers for children, for artists, for people writing on transparencies for overhead projectors. It developed a special nonsmearing marker for use on the treated paper used in fax machines. Attention to the market allowed Sanford to grasp what customers wanted, and to bring out new products for many different needs.With the company making money and expanding, Pearsall offered to buy out the other family members. In 1984, he put together $66 million with some other investors, and bought out his father-in-law and the other longstanding stockholders. Then a year later, in August 1985, Sanford went public, with an initial stock price of $17. The company was admired by Wall Street analysts for its double-digit return on equity. Sales in 1985 stood at $69 million, with a profit of $4.9 million. By 1988, sales had risen to $102 million, and profit reached $17.6 million.