CA Gift acquires Abbey Press gift division

CA GIFT HAS ACQUIRED the gift and trade marketing division of Abbey Press of Indiana.
CA GIFT HAS ACQUIRED the gift and trade marketing division of Abbey Press of Indiana.

PROVIDENCE – CA Gift and parent company, Cathedral Art Metal Co. Inc., purchased the wholesale gift division of Abbey Press, a press operated and owned by a 160-year-old Benedictine monastic community, the company announced Monday.

The Saint Meinrad Archabbey of Indiana had decided to shut down Abbey Press, a wholesale gift manufacturing, trade marketing and printing operations company in December 2016. CA Gift purchased the gift and trade marketing divisions known as Abbey Press Trade Marketing and will retain its creative and sales staff, who will now produce and market products under the name Abbey Gift.

“We expect a seamless transition, as we retail both the creative and sales teams and move forward with this iconic brand,” said CA Gift President Leo A. Tracey in a prepared statement.

In a conversation with PBN, Tracey said that the Abbey Gifts employees would remain in Indiana, expanding the company’s domestic staff from 35 to about 50 employees, who mostly will focus on sales and creative elements of the business.

- Advertisement -

The move to acquire the Abbey Press brand allows CA Gift to expand its product base, Tracey explained, from the metal-based products the company currently builds in the company’s factory in El Salvador to materials that include ceramics, glass, resin and wood. He estimated that 80 percent of the manufacturing that Abbey Press’s gift division engaged in would remain in factories in Asia, while about 20 percent of manufacturing would migrate to CA Gifts’ El Salvador location.

The move was natural, said Tracey, as the companies already had working and personal relationships.

CA Gifts and Cathedral Art Metal was founded in Providence in 1920, in that time operating in Providence and between 1972 and 2007, Pawtucket. According to Tracey, in 2006, the company had approximately 250 employees but was “wiped out” in the 2010 Rhode Island flood. Since then, Tracey said the company has stabilized and is preparing to expand once again.

Tracey sounded confident, “We’re ramping up,” he said.

CA Gifts also employs about 150 workers at its factory in El Salvador. Cathedral Art Metal manufacturers custom products for jewelry and gift vendors.

Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor.

No posts to display