At Cross, Along With Sheaffer, Has Been Sold

[corgicoupe]

A.T. Cross Company, which does business in the promotional products industry as supplier Cross (PPAI 114156), has been acquired by private equity firm Transom Capital Group. The new company, which owns and operates the Cross and Sheaffer brands, will be led by the incumbent management team, ensuring continuity with product development, distribution and the supply chain, but with new capital to enable growth across Cross’s excellent heritage brands. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

[dennis_f]

There have been a couple of posts on this over the past few days (sorry I don't have the links handy), but not much discussion re: the ramifications/reprecussions/consequences yet. Presumably because none of the details have been released.

 

On one of the other threads someone did post that the Transom Group is not known for luxury brands (quite the opposite) so there was a bit of dread regarding that news (fear that there might now be a reversal on Cross's current objective of going more upscale). But everything has to be conjecture right now, given nothing has happened beyond publishing the news.

 

I guess we all just wait with baited breath to see what this means...

 

D

[highlander1307]

A.T. Cross Company, which includes the Cross and Schaeffer brands, is now under new ownership, having been purchased by private equity company Transon Capital Group LLC, Los Angeles.

http://www.providenc...ate-equity-firm

http://wpri.com/2017...mpany-at-cross/

http://magazine.prom...te-equity-firm/

[PenHero]

Brendan Menapace in that last link is unable to spell Sheaffer......

[tonydent84]

I noticed that when they took over Sheaffer, the Cross site only had a few lines from Sheaffer and never really caught up to publishing all the lines of Sheaffers available. At first I thought it was just a long process, but then I thought maybe those Sheaffer lines were discontinued or something.

It would be real nice if Cross began to offer some vintage Sheaffer lines. And hopefully both Cross and Sheaffer will start moving away from using those heavy metal pens. Alas, so much hope and probably no likelihood of significant change.

[tonydent84]

A.T. Cross Company, which includes the Cross and Schaeffer brands, is now under new ownership, having been purchased by private equity company Transon Capital Group LLC, Los Angeles.

http://www.providenc...ate-equity-firm

http://wpri.com/2017...mpany-at-cross/

http://magazine.prom...te-equity-firm/

I wonder if the target of 35 new employees can be any sorts of employees from designers to janitors, or if there are particular quotas for each level of pay they must hire. Because Cross seems to be hesitant on hiring.

[davefoe]

Seems to me that Sheaffer should have been positioned as the exclusive, upscale brand, with Cross kept where it was. They have seriously devalued what was left of Sheaffer's brand panache by focusing on low-end products like the Sheaffer Pop, recycled Cross products, and longtime low-end Sheaffer models, etc. Not much creativity for a "brand" that claims to be so artistic, etc. Just very disappointing to me.

[welch]

Transom-owned Cross / Sheaffer now has the Legacy-Heritage on the Sheaffer website. At least one of the real Sheaffers is being kept on.

 

https://www.sheaffer.com/en/departments/writing-instruments/collections/legacy-heritage

[AL01]

Oh good.

 

That's the one modern Sheaffer pen I like, (along with the Prelude.)

[mke]

Isn't that model not a bit too "cute"?

Like the characters in manga comics - no details, lots of large flat areas.