Major Supplier Giftco goes out of business

Giftco has closed.  With Scott's stopping imports, that leaves the entire fundraising industry without a supply of "stock" shopper catalogs.  Each regional or national company will now have to develop their own catalogs and find their own sources of goods.  The immediate result will likely be that at least a third of the local fundraising companies in the US will go out of business as the entire industry continues to contract.  

Here is a statement from a regional Giftco representative to his fundraising company customers:

Sadly and unfortunately Giftco has run into an obstacle that we cannot overcome.

As you are aware the banking climate in America today is at its worst in our lifetimes. We have been working toward refinancing the company with a new bank for many months. During that period of time we were convinced that an agreeable transaction was in the works. As in all of life no deal is done until it is finalized.  Over the last two days, in the final hours of negotiations stipulations were changed or added which made it impossible for Giftco to go forward.

As you are aware we had severely tightened our belts over the last 12 months and made many internal changes. The owners invested sizable additional funds into Giftco. Our outside partners were lined up to do so also. However, with the banks' new additional requirements, we are not in a position to continue.

The result of this is that Giftco will discontinue operations. This will be done through an orderly liquidation of assets and dissolution of the company.

We will make every effort to work with our customers to provide you with goods to service your schools. We have existing inventory to build kits of "In School Shoppe" merchandise. We have existing prize inventory. We have sizable inventories on many excellent "evergreen" products. These goods will be made available for purchase and immediate shipment over the next couple of weeks. We will be in contact with you to offer these opportunities.

We are both exasperated and devastated over this turn of events. We did not foresee this outcome as being a realistic possibility until the last few days. Over the last few days we have exhausted all known possibilities for the required funding. In any other banking climate Giftco would be viewed as a good client; in the current climate that is simply not the case.

 Regrettably we can only apologize that we will not be around to work with you in the future.