Ennis, Inc.

Ennis, Inc. is the Midlothian, Texas company founded in 1909, which prints and manufactures business forms and other business products and, through its apparel segment — today presented as the Ennis Apparel Solutions Group — manufactures activewear for distribution throughout North America. Ennis trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EBF. The apparel business sells t-shirts, fleece and other wearables, and a newer line of activewear and headwear in sizes from toddler to 6XL, through sales representatives and distributors who can order on their existing Ennis accounts; the print segment distributes business products through independent dealers, stationers and quick printers across the United States.

Company Profile

The October 2013 summary in the record sets out the two-segment structure: print and apparel, the first distributing business forms and products through independent dealers, the second producing and selling activewear — t-shirts, fleece goods and other wearables — across the United States, Canada and Mexico through sales representatives. The same summary dates the print side's consolidation, with the Custom Envelope Group and Folder Express acquisitions closing in the autumn of 2013.

Ennis is in this guide for its second business, not its first: blank activewear is the raw material of the decorated-apparel trade, and the Apparel Solutions Group's pitch — high-quality activewear and hats, wide style and colour ranges, toddler to 6XL sizing, ordered on an existing distributor account — is aimed at the printers and promotional dealers Ennis already serves. The two segments share a customer more than a product.

The range behind the name is business forms and printed products, and activewear, fleece and headwear. Its customers are independent print dealers and distributors, and the decorated-apparel trade in North America. That combination — what is sold, and to whom — is the simplest way to place Ennis, Inc. in the industry: it explains the company's costs, its competitors and the kind of news that moved its shares when it had them. A change in either half of the combination, a new product category or a new customer, is usually the first sign that the business described in the older summaries is turning into something different.

Scale should be read from the dated summaries with their dates attached. Store counts, sales descriptions and market positions quoted there were the company's own account of itself in that year, and they are the right basis for comparing Ennis, Inc. with the other companies in this section — a component supplier against a retailer, or a catalogue house against a mall chain — as long as each figure is compared with figures from roughly the same period.

For current dealings, the snapshot at the top of this page is the place to start: it gives the company's present status — Operating — and links to the official website, which is where current product ranges, store information and investor or corporate contacts are maintained. Anything in the dated summaries that conflicts with the snapshot should be read as the older position: summaries describe the year they are dated, and the snapshot describes the company as it stands now.

For anyone researching the fashion industry's public-company era, Ennis, Inc. is a useful case: a 1909 printing company whose second business supplies the decorated-apparel trade. The summaries in this section were compiled while the story was still unfolding, which is exactly what makes them worth keeping — they preserve what the company said about itself at the time, before the outcome was known.

History in Brief

Ennis's apparel record is a segment record rather than a separate company history: a printing company founded in 1909 which built a second business manufacturing blank activewear for the decorated-apparel trade, presented today as the Apparel Solutions Group with an expanded activewear and headwear line. The dated summary in the references below records the two-segment structure as it stood in 2013.