American Greetings
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| Type | Public (NYSE: AM) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1906 |
| Founder(s) | Jacob Sapirstein (1885-1987) |
| Headquarters | Brooklyn, Ohio, USA |
| Key people | Morry Weiss - Chairman; Zev Weiss - CEO & Director; Jeffrey M. Weiss - President, COO & Director |
| Industry | Greeting card publisher |
| Products | Greeting cards, gift wrap, party goods, giftware, stationery, electronic greetings, calendars & educational products |
| Revenue | $1.9 billion |
| Net income | $84.4 million |
| Employees | 18,000 |
| Website | www.ag.com |
American Greetings Corporation, Inc. NYSE: AM is the world's largest publicly-traded greeting card company. It is based in Brooklyn, Ohio and sells paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products (such as wrapping papers and decorations), and electronic expressive content (e.g., ringtones and images for cellphones). In addition to the American Greetings brand, the company owns the Carlton Cards, Tender Thoughts and Gibson brands of greeting cards.
American Greetings is also famous for their toy design and licensing division, Those Characters From Cleveland (now American Greetings Properties). The most-popular copyrighted properties owned by this division include Strawberry Shortcake, the Care Bears, The Get-Along Gang and Holly Hobbie. American Greetings also holds an exclusive license for Nickelodeon characters.
In 2008, American Greetings announced the sale of its Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears properties to DIC Entertainment (now part of Cookie Jar Entertainment). However, on January 9th, 2009. it was announced [1] that the planned sale had been called off. As a result, the properties remain under American Greetings' ownership as the company searches for a new buyer. On March 24, 2009, MoonScoop offered to pay $95 million for the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake properties and related rights held by Cookie Jar. Under that deal, American Greetings would pocket $76 million for the animation assets while Cookie Jar would get $19 million for its own rights. On March 30, 2009, Cookie Jar made a $76 million counter bid for Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake. Cookie Jar has until April 30 2009 to complete a deal. If Cookie Jar fail to close a deal, MoonScoop has until June 7 2009 to complete its own deal with American Greetings.[1] In May 2009 American Greetings filed a $100 million lawsuit against Cookie Jar with Cookie Jar filing a $25 million countersuit against American Greetings over the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake deal.[2]
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[edit] History
Founded in 1906 by Polish immigrant Jacob Sapirstein (1885-1987), who sold cards from a horse-drawn cart, American Greetings has been run by members of the family since its inception. Irving I. Stone (Sapirstein's oldest son, who changed his surname to Stone) was stuffing envelopes at age five, handling the business during his father's illness when he was nine, and worked for the company fulltime on leaving high school. He was succeeded as CEO by his son-in-law Morry Weiss in 1987, and took the title "Founder-Chairman" previously held by his father, when Weiss became chairman in 1992, before dying in 2000. In 2003 Morry Weiss's sons Zev and Jeffrey became CEO and President respectively; Morry Weiss remains Chairman. In early 2007, American Greetings replaced Kellogg's as the sponsor for Dragon Tales.[citation needed] American Greetings has also branched out onto the Internet, and owns a network of websites. On October 25, 2007, it announced the purchase of Webshots from CNET for $45 million in cash.
[edit] Licences
(Note: not all licenses are original creations by American Greetings. Some were licensed from third parties, where indicated)
- Dragon Tales
- Betsy's Kindergarten Adventures
- Care Bears
- Get-Along Gang
- Holly Hobbie (original)
- Holly Hobbie & Friends
- Lady Lovely Locks
- Madballs
- Maryoku Yummy
- My Pet Monster
- Paintbox Studios
- Peppermint Rose
- Popples
- Pretty Freekin Scary
- Strawberry Shortcake (selling rights to Hasbro and Cookie Jar Entertainment)
- Sugar Sonic
- Sushi Pack (created by Studio Espinosa and Cloudco [2])
- TinPo (created by UNKL [3])
- Twisted Whiskers
[edit] Cartoonists
[edit] References
- ^ "Bid puts 'Care Bears,' 'Shortcake' back in play". The Hollywood Reporter. April 2, 2009. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/world/news/e3ie9ac42d5eeee81584632c574212d6a57. Retrieved on 2009-04-03.
- ^ "Brooklyn-based American Greetings accuses Cookie Jar Entertainment of bad faith in Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears deal". Cleveland. May 12, 2009. http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business-12/1242117045312680.xml&coll=2. Retrieved on 2009-05-12.
[edit] See also
- Cardmaking
- Carlton Cards - American Greetings' Canadian branch.
- Carlton Cards Retail - American Greetings' store management.
