Enesco Buys Gund
By Staff -- Gifts and Dec, 7/1/2008 8:28:00 AM
Itasca, IL — Now that it's bought the 110 year old Gund, gift vendor Enesco LLC plans to extend the Edison, NJ-based plush manufacturer's brand into new categories. But while Enesco's chief, Matthew Bousquette, was mum on the details, he did tell Gifts & Dec in an exclusive interview that Gund's future will include its current management.
“The two companies are going to run separately,” he said, adding that Bruce Raiffe, Gund's chair and CEO, will serve on the Enesco board. “We are very thrilled to have the existing Gund management stay on and lead the company,” he said.
Although details of the sale were not made public, Raiffe did note that “The decision to sell our family’s business after 110 years was not easy. We chose Enesco and have confidence in its commitment to the Gund brand and its ability to maintain Gund’s stellar reputation.”
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“I think there’s an opportunity to grow Gund rather than shrink it. There’s more that’s undeveloped than overdeveloped,” Bousquette also told Gifts & Dec. “Gund is part of our overall strategy; one of the things we are trying to do is focus on brands versus products. The whole idea is [that] Enesco’s focus is to grow by building our own [company] , license other brands, and buy more companies.” Bousquette says Enesco is not finished with its acquisitions, though he didn’t want to speculate about whether there would be further buys this year. Other recent brand acquisitions of Enesco’s include Boyds, Country Artists and Our Name is Mud.
The fate of the Gund showrooms is as yet undetermined. “The overall Enesco showroom strategy is under review and Gund is part of that review,” said Bousquette.
Although the deal was a long time in the making, according to Bousquette, it may come as a surprise to the industry at large because “people were focused on the companies that were more publicly for sale and so we were able to quietly do this one. It was never on the block. It was us approaching the Raiffe family.”
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