Rhode Island Company Unit Enhances Cahners’ Position in Graphic Arts, Converting and Packaging Market Sectors

Cahners Business Information, North America’s leading provider of business-to-business information, announced today it has acquired the graphic arts, packaging, printing, design and publishing business of TrendWatch, a market research and strategy firm.

"TrendWatch will greatly expand and enhance our already substantial B2B holdings in the printing and publishing market sectors," said Ron Andriani, Executive Vice President of Cahners’ Building, Design and Retail Division. Cahners owns numerous brands in the printing and graphic arts industries, including the market-leading publications Graphic Arts Monthly, AF Lewis Information Services, the Graphic Arts Blue Books, Quick Print Products and Converting Magazine.

"Combining TrendWatch with our AF Lewis Directory and Information Services makes great business and marketing sense," said Marguerite Van Stolk, publisher of AF Lewis. AF Lewis publishes the Graphics Art Blue Books and also maintains the AF Lewis Database, which contains detailed demographic information on printers and creative services providers in North America. "We are now even better positioned to meet the business-critical market knowledge needs of both the advertising customers and reader communities served by Cahners in these market sectors."

TrendWatch, formed in 1996, is a privately held company headquartered in Rhode Island, whose partners include Dr. Joseph Webb and James R. Whittington. TrendWatch publishes market trend and information reports, provides industry briefings, and performs market/product strategy and market information consulting services. Cahners is acquiring TrendWatch Printing, TrendWatch Packaging and TrendWatch product lines in the graphic design, publishing, and Internet graphic design markets.

TrendWatch reports are compiled primarily from original research designed to monitor industry trends and market changes in the U.S. graphic arts and creative markets. TrendWatch surveys business owners and top-level department managers to form a bottom-up view of the markets.

"Cahners is an excellent partner for our graphic arts and printing business," Mr. Whittington said. "Their market position and publishing leadership will add tremendous value to our business proposition and enable us to move the TrendWatch brand into many new markets and industries."

"Matching the forward-looking TrendWatch business with the established and growing Blue Book database in a new endeavor that will be driven by Cahners’s substantial resources will accelerate TrendWatch’ growth plans. The business will realize its full potential sooner than if we had continued alone," said Dr. Webb. "I'm looking forward to helping Cahners aggressively build the TrendWatch franchise."