Decorize.com announces GuildMaster Inc. acquisition

Springfield-based decorize.com, a company that enables large and small retailers to purchase interior decorating products from the Far East, has acquired GuildMaster Inc., a local company that manufactures home accents.

According to Jon Baker, chief executive officer of decorize.com, GuildMaster is the first of two acquisitions the company will make.

"As we developed the company early on, it occurred to us that basically our model could benefit other home accent companies, and in January, at our board meeting in Colorado, we presented an acquisition plan to our board ... we explained how we thought we could take our model and wrap it around these home accent companies and improve them, and at the same time gain some things from their infrastructure," Baker said.

He said that decorize.com's business model is "pretty unique in that we have stripped away a lot of the non value-added costs, and what we're able to do as a result of that is provide both large and small retailers with some very aggressive pricing. For example a small retailer in Springfield, Missouri, who could never on their own source the Far East, through us can source four different countries on orders as low as $250."

GuildMaster was an obvious choice for acquisition, Baker said, because Guild-Master founder Jim Parsons sits on the decorize.com board of directors and was involved in the early stages of the firm.

Parsons was not available for comment at press time, but he said in a news release that, "It makes sense to bring the two companies together. We believe we can each benefit from shared resources. ... Using some of their tools, we can offer better pricing for our customers."

Baker said decorize.com is talking with three other companies, all outside Missouri, and the company is "very close" to making its second acquisition.

Once the second acquisition is complete, Decorize Inc. will become the company's corporate name, and decor-ize.com, GuildMaster and the second acquisition will be divisions of Decorize Inc.

Decorize.com has 15 full- and part-time employees, and the company will keep all of GuildMaster's approximately 40 employees, Baker said.

Decorize.com started in July 2000, initially offering services to larger retailers and launched its small retailer model in January.

(This article originally appeared in the March 24 issue of the SBJ Daily Update, a subscriber-only service.)