WEST KENNEBUNK, Maine — A Massachusetts-based stationery company is buying William Arthur, a Hallmark Cards subsidiary based in West Kennebunk, and will move the operation and jobs out of Maine.
Dalton, Mass.-based Crane & Co., which produces stationery and paper the U.S. Treasury uses to print currency, signed an agreement with Hallmark Cards to acquire William Arthur for an undisclosed sum, according to a media release from Hallmark.
For now, William Arthur and its 270 employees will continue to operate in West Kennebunk. However, Crane plans to consolidate the business with its facility in North Adams, Mass., in the second half of 2013, Wallis Post, a Crane spokesman, told the Bangor Daily News.
After consolidation, Crane expects to have up to 100 hourly manufacturing jobs available at its North Adams facility, Post said.
“Crane is committed to making those jobs available to William Arthur employees who choose to relocate,” Post said, adding that the company will have relocation resources available to help with the transition.
Crane will offer severance packages and outplacement services to William Arthur employees who do not wish to relocate, Post said.
William Arthur in 2005 signed a licensing partnership with Vera Wang to design and produce her exclusive line of wedding invitations and stationery.
“The acquisition of William Arthur reinforces Crane’s commitment to being a leader in the stationery market,” DeFalco said in a statement. “By uniting three of the industry’s premier brands — Crane, William Arthur and Vera Wang — we are investing in the category and will provide the market with a broad range of high-quality, outstanding designs.”
William Arthur was founded in 1949 as Ten Bamboo Studio in Wellesley, Mass., according to the company’s website. In 1984, Bill and June DeJonge acquired the company, and three years later changed its name to William Arthur and moved it to West Kennebunk. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of Hallmark in 1997.
Crane’s acquisition is scheduled to close on Nov. 30, 2012.
Another 270 jobs will be gone next year and the company moved to Mass, after being in business since 1949. What great news!!! [sarcasm intended]
Read the article again. It has only been located in Maine since ’87. MA is simply taking back a company that was founded in MA.
I said it has been in business since 1949, not in Maine since 1949.
Yep, I’d move it too if Maine votes down gay marriage again. After all, there’s a whole slew of wedding cards and stationary that would have NO market in Maine if the voters are so mean-spirited as to vote it down again.
Maine, Open for business, Right With LaPage in office companys can’t leave fast enough. Does this administration ever reach out to businesses to try to help them and maybe be proactive, or is it always that they can kiss his butt?
Of course he reaches out to them…if there’s something in it for him.
What help? This company was bought by a competitor. It’s not going out of business, just being sold and moved. Kind of like when someone bought it in 1984 and moved it to Maine in 1987. But don’t let the truth get in the way of your ignorant statement…
LePage strikes again.
I do not like what he is doing, but this has nothing to do with LePage.
Holy cow! I agree with YOU !
There is always middle ground! I hate when a story about a business leaves, someone always says a comment like this, no way LePage could have stopped this.
Exactly…something are beyond his capability
Sometimes it doesn’t matter. Life has been lousy since he took office.
More Maine Jobs Bye Bye. LePage leads Maine into a permanent Depression.
SO…. all the bad economic news nationally can be blamed on G.W. Bush (who left office almost four years ago, BUT all bad economic news statewide is blamed on LePage who has been in office fewer than two years.
I’ve got it.
This is a corporate decission not a political decission. LePage has nothing to do with the buying and selling of businesses nor what the purchasing company decides what to do woth the operation after they buy it. Yes we would like the jobs to stay here but that is entirely up to the owners not the administration.
If it had happened on Baldacci’s watch you know the other side would be howling, too!
These jobs are gone, probably never to return. We need ideas about how to replace them with better paying, more secure jobs. Not finger pointing and blaming. I think we should convert every local and state government building to wood boilers. Then pass a law that says the wood needs to be cut by men with chain saws, not mechanical harvesters. This would turn the hundreds of millions we send off to Saudi Arabia every winter for heating oil into good paying jobs for thousands of Mainers. Any local community that has an abandoned shoe shop would be much father ahead to get the shop going again and call it All American Shoe Company. People, myself included, would be willing to pay a premium for quality shoes made in America. I buy American made shoes and boots now, but I have to get them off of the internet. I am 100% positive that there are enough people out there wanting to buy American made products. The problem is that it is getting harder and harder to do. Let’s change that.
Ya…then we can cut the shovels that state workers use in half..therefore MORE state workers…tah da !..jeez your post made me think evolution was a probability !
These would be private sector jobs Einstein. The money would come from the state and local budgets, money that is now headed for Saudi Arabia to pay for oil. Buying oil for heat in a state full of trees is foolish, almost as foolish as your reply. I actually do not expect much more from people who have nothing but negativism to offer.
have you ever tried to use a shovel that was cut in half….back breaking…..
You can buy New Balance, which are made in Maine, off the shelf in Maine.
I looked all over Bangor for a pair of New Balance last year. I can save you a trip to the mall, there are none there. Just Chinese made junk, priced like New Balance. I ended up driving to their factory store in Skowhegan to buy a pair. Pretty sad when you have to drive 40 miles to buy American and support jobs here in Maine.
or just dramtically lower the cost of energy….either way is fine…..
If history is any indication, energy costs will continue to go up, not down. We need innovation and thinking outside the box, not hoping and wishing that gas or electricity gets cheaper. Besides, gas, when adjusted for inflation is about where it should be at $3.50 a gallon. The problem is the wages have not kept pace with inflation and it is killing our middle class and our economy.
That’s one way for a company to say that they want nothing to do with the State of Maine.
It is
with great pleasure that I welcome you to the City of North Adams and invite you
to share our City’s natural beauty.As a place to live or visit, the North Adams area
is unrivaled in the variety of its cultural and recreational
offerings. I encourage you
to visit the Mayor’s Office of
Tourism as well as our many area attractions including the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Mount Greylock State
Reservation, Western Gateway Heritage
State Park, Natural
Bridge State Park, The Appalachian
Trail, Windsor Lake Park
and Campground, and of course,
the restaurants and shops, which are second to none.
In
addition, it is only a short drive to five ski areas, a dozen golf courses, the
Green Mountains of Vermont, Upstate New York, as well as many swimming, fishing,
boating and camping facilities.
But , but our “quality of place” is second to none , right ?? You mean other places are more nice ?? How can that be ??Baldi promised that we were best and could get by on OUR “quality of place”…
North Adams, Mass is in the western part of the state and is rural, undeveloped, heavily wooded, with some great people. Workers might be offered jobs there and enjoy it.