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Company Interview Excerpt
MARC PERKINS - GUNTHER INTERNATIONAL LTD (SORT)


Full article published: 10/02/2000


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TWST: Could we with an overview and profile of Gunther International?
Mr. Perkins: The company was started 20 years ago or so by a fellow by the name of Bill Gunther, who is no longer associated with the company. After several years, they began manufacturing a piece of equipment known as an inserter, or a finishing machine, which is a very large piece of equipment that is essentially a high-speed envelope stuffer with a twist. That is, it's intelligent and reads bar codes on the document and then makes sure that the envelope is stuffed correctly. Additionally, it can select what inserts go in the envelope along with the documents based upon what the bar code says. Then it keeps a record of what mail was sent to whom in computer format. Gunther was really the pioneer in what's called intelligent inserting. With that as a background, the company functioned largely in the insurance industry, and the principal thing that was processed on its equipment was insurance policies, which, obviously, need to be tracked and are sensitive legal documents. As a result of that, it developed a customer base consisting of many of the leading insurance companies in the country. In 1993, the company needed some financing and it ended up selling a substantial stake in the company to Harold Geneen, a name which most of your readers should recognize, as not the founder, but the person who developed into a major business, IT&T, and was, as some called him, the first great conglomerateur, going back to the 1960s. And Harold then was in his 80s and ran the company, for several years, built it up some. Then, in 1994 the company came public. That's when I first bought stock along with some other people I know. In late 1997, Harold Geneen passed away and it became evident by mid-1998 that the people Harold had installed to run the company were not capable, if Harold wasn't around, to oversee it all. The company had some difficulties, and I put together a group, the largest investor of which was the Tisch family, who came in, made an investment in the company, and I came in to run it after 30 years in the investment business. That's where we stand. I've been here for about two years and we've dramatically increased the volume of the company and made it profitable. We've still got a lot of work to do, but we're getting there.

 

Tickers included in this excerpt: SORT

 

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