Cyrk was once one of the largest promotional companies in the world with over 2,000 employees worldwide. Company shares are listed on NASDAQ with ticker symbol CYRK . Founded in 1976 by Gregory Shlopak (born 1946) and Paul Butman (born 1949), Cyrk started as a company doing customized screen printing. The company went public in 1993 and the stock price hovered around $ 40 per share. The Gloucester, Massachusetts-based company has several divisions even though its consumer loyalty division is the company's cash flow machine.
Video Cyrk (company)
Rise
Most of CYRK's revenue is generated from the sale of special promotional products used as consumer gifts in the promotion of point-based consumer loyalty.
CYRK had three very successful public offers between the beginning of 1993 and the end of 1994 borne by Montgomery Securities, all of which were excess demand.
In 1997 the company, "already an important player through the Marlboro Gear and Pepsi Stuff continuity program management" acquired Los Angeles-based Simon Marketing, making it one of the largest agencies in the promotion industry. They were named by the Agency of the Year by Sales Promo Magazine in 1998. Although CYRK lost Pepsi Stuff's account in 1998 when it moved to a Coca-Cola account that never rivaled success with Pepsi, they boasted McDonald's and Philip Morris as their top two clients. They also do significant business with Beanie Babies Ty Inc. makers. While Philip Morris contributed 90% of the company's business in 1994 through the acquisition of Simon, McDonald's alone accounted for 61% of its consolidated revenue in 1999. On March 31, 1997 Cyrk purchased Monroe, WA-based Tonkin, Inc. At that time, Caterpillar Inc. is Tonkin's biggest account. The Tonkin acquisition is intended to enable CYRk to penetrate the business-to-business segment of the promotional industry and to serve as a further diversification initiative.
Although based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the company's marketing arm from 1994 to 1999 was a New York-based operation called Integrated Marketing Solutions, with President Laurel Rossi, who left the company in February 1999 to move to Hill Holliday Direct as director and executive representative client service. and Joseph Sequenzia as Executive Executive Director, who left the company in 1998 to join the Draft IPG company wherever he served as Executive Vice President, Executive Executive Director. In 1999, they had $ 988 million in sales. Shlopak resigned in 1999 to join Louis Marx at the investment firm Equity Enterprises (later Brae Capital). Patrick Brady, who had joined the company in 1989 as a 50% owner of the company which was then held by the private sector and, in 1999, already president, was appointed CEO. At the end of the year, the Yucaipa Company with an investment of $ 25 million, became a big enough owner to replace Patrick Brady as chairman with Ronald Burkle himself. But Patrick and Simon CEO Allan Brown are named as "co-chief executives" of Cyrk.
At the end of 1999, with the company's stock price still far below the company's intrinsic value, the board of directors launched a strategic initiative with DLJ (Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and CS First Boston) intended to maximize its share price through a plan that would release an inheritance account certain and certain businesses acquired previously. The plan was completed in the Spring of 2001. In October 2000, the company was described as "... mainly from Cyrk's promotional product operations at Gloucester, Simon's Marketing based in Los Angeles... and the newly formed Internet division.... June 2001 and after the successful conclusion of its strategic initiatives, co-founders Cyrk Patrick Brady, EVP-CFO Dominic Mammola and Exec VP Ted Axelrod all resigned.In or around May 2001, the company is divided into two parts: The Corporate Promotion Group is sold " $ 147 million, just $ 14 million for investment group Rockridge Partners, Inc. ", an investor group led by Gemini Investors, LLC and Cyrk's name along with it." Bob Siemering, a principal with Rockridge Partners, is the COO of Marketing Incentives ", a company acquired by Cyrk in 1998. Siemering became CEO of the new company.The remaining part of the company changed its name to Simon Worldw idea.
Maps Cyrk (company)
Fall
With Simon Marketing's entity as the main business remaining after the previous divestment, the great dependence on revenue from McDonald's proved to be very unorthodoxy when the McDonald's Best Chance of Monopoly Game was cheated cheating by Jerome P. Jacobson, security officer at then-Cyrk-Simon subsidiary Marketing. Although the arrest was announced on August 22, 2001, with confidence following, and only one accused Cyrk/Simon employee, this did not stop McDonald's from canceling his deal. Phillip Morris immediately followed suit, thus together removing more than 70% of Simon Worldwide's revenue.
The fall wiped out the benefits of strategic divestment and severely damaged Simon's remaining businesses worldwide; Ronald Burkle resigned from the board, and fourteen executives went to join Draft Worldwide (now called FCB) in Chicago, part of the Interpublic Group, in forming a new unit called Premium Surge in their promotional marketing division, Surge. While initially maintaining friendly relations, there are still some unresolved issues between Cyrk and Simon. In May 2002, Simon Worldwide was liquidated.
Parts based in Massachusetts have apparently been sold. On May 20, 2003, PPB Magazine reported that under the new owner Sun Capital Partners, Inc., Gary Vonk succeeded Bob Siemering as CEO of Cyrk. In November 2004, Cyrk, now based in Monroe, Washington appointed Alan Patrick as CEO. Patrick quickly restored Cyrk to a break-even position and with the Company ready for future growth, enhancing the client list with the addition of GM, developing the website directly to new Caterpillar customers, winning the Cat of the Year Platinum License License in 2005 and 2006 and successfully acquiring European and Asian subsidiary companies. Alan Patrick, CEO of Cyrk, left the company with a collective agreement in late 2007 to pursue other business interests on the east coast of the United States.
After that, Cyrk introduced Jeffrey Werner as CEO and in January 2008 welcomed Frank Bakirdan as Vice President of Global Sales. At the same time, Cyrk's financial statements show that the cash benefits from dismissal and payment of suppressed suppliers were first institutionalized by the interim leadership and then continued by Werner. When Werner and Bakirdan tried to formulate their own strategy, further dismissal was done in a desperate attempt to save money. At the end of October 2008, the bottom fell from consumer confidence, and sales volume fell further. Cyrk was forced in November 2008 to release all unnecessary personnel and global sales staff in an effort to reduce costs, and to sell all business units and assets.
On January 22, 2009, an auction held at Cyrk's headquarters liquidated the company's assets.
Meanwhile, Simon Worldwide is still trading as OTCQB: Ã, SWWI on the pink sheet.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia