Ed White has heard the rumors, too.

Whispers that his E&E Display Group was being sold to an out-of-state firm have been circulating for months among Lawrence-area business leaders and the 325 employees at the company’s plant at 910 E. 29th St.

But White, E&E chairman and son of the firm’s late founder, said last week a sale wasn’t imminent. He stopped short of saying the family wasn’t considering offers.

“It’s a family business and each of the family members have different goals and objectives,” White said. “But I can tell you there hasn’t been a decision one way or the other about what to do in the future, and part of that is because everybody has different goals.”

He confirmed E&E had been approached by several companies interested in buying the Lawrence firm, which manufactures in-store displays and other shelving and fixture devices for retailers. He declined to identify any of the interested parties.

“In this economy there are large companies that are constantly contacting us,” White said. “It wouldn’t be prudent for us to not listen.”

That doesn’t mean White or other family members have a burning desire to sell the business his father started as a specialty packaging company in 1956.

Whatever the company decides could have a significant impact on Lawrence. According to figures compiled by the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, E&E Display Group is the 10th largest private employer in the city. But White said the community and the company’s employees needn’t be worried about the firm’s future.

“It is one of those things that when business is slow all types of rumors fly,” he said. “All you can do is let your employees know that things are fine.”

High profile customers

Company president and CEO Daryl Morgison said the company in 2001 posted its first significant increase in revenue since 1998 and was expecting an increase again this year.

Daryl Morgison is president and CEO of E&E Display Group, 910 E. 29th St., one of Lawrence's larger employers. The company designs and manufactures in-store displays like the Peanuts store displays above. E&E produced and manufactured the displays for Hallmark Cards.

But what has Morgison most excited are prospects for 2003 and beyond. That’s because the company recently landed a long list of high-profile clients that are planning major work in the coming years.

“This period that we’re in now really reminds me of the late ’70s or early ’80s when we started doing more work for Hallmark and our business really grew,” said Morgison, who has been with the company 25 years. “We’re standing on the edge of seeing ourselves grow significantly in the next few years.”

Morgison is upbeat because the company has expanded its sales force to improve the company’s ability to land work from the biggest companies.

The increased efforts have paid off. The company recently won work from companies such as Kellogg, Whirlpool, Viking Range, Radio Shack, Payless ShoeSource, Cabela’s and International Paper.

The company was selected to build all the fixtures and displays for the prototype of a new Radio Shack store. Radio Shack is testing the concept in the Jacksonville, Fla., market. Morgison said E&E officials were hopeful the national retailer will decide to change all the stores to the new look.

“It could be a big deal for us because it probably would take 10 to 12 years to fit all of Radio Shack’s stores with the new fixtures,” Morgison said. “It would be a nice piece of long-term business for us.”

Sensitive to slowdown

Emmett Battiest Jr. moves Personal Digital Assistant Security shelf units for Radio Shack stores off the assembly line and into shipping boxes at E&E Display Group. The Lawrence company designs and manufactures point-of purchase displays and store fixtures.

That deal and others, such as a project to create all the in-store displays for the latest phones from Sprint PCS, has Morgison projecting E&E will grow at a much faster rate than its competitors, which primarly include several dozen privately-owned companies.

Morgison is projecting E&E’s revenue growth to hit 15 percent to 20 percent annually beginning in 2003. Laurie Najjar, editor of Point of Purchase magazine, said if the company meets those projections it will be among the top performers in the industry.

Najjar said the last time the $15.5 billion POP industry saw growth that large was in 2000, when revenue for the industry increased by 18 percent. In 2003 the industry is expected to see revenue growth of only about 5 percent, following a projected 4 percent increase in 2002 and a 9 percent drop in 2001. Najjar, though, said E&E might be able to pull it off.

“As far as I know they are a solid company,” Najjar said. “The Radio Shack deal was pretty big news. Retailers don’t engage in a massive redesign project very often, so those jobs are hard to come by.”

Such growth certainly would mean an increase in employment at the Lawrence plant, Morgison said, but he could not estimate a total.

“Based on the projects we have lined up, we have a very positive outlook,” Morgison said. “But the $64,000 question is, will the economy cooperate? If it does, though, we feel like we have the opportunity to grow exponentially.”

The company is susceptible to an economic slowdown. The attacks of Sept. 11 sent the company into one of its worst slumps in its history.

“It was as slow as I’ve ever seen it in my 25 years out here,” Morgison said. “And we really didn’t see a return to normal until about six months into 2002.”

The reason, Morgison said, is that most of E&E’s business comes from companies either opening new stores or launching new products. Companies were reluctant to do either in the days and months after Sept. 11.

The last year’s trouble

To compensate, the company released nine employees and had production crews work fewer than 40 hours per week. Morgison declined to release exact numbers, but said the company suffered a drop in business “well past 20 percent.” But all the while, he and company officials held out hope for a rebound.

“They (customers) kept telling us their projects weren’t dead but were just on hold,” Morgison said.

It turns out they were telling the truth.

“In June or July, it just seemed like the floodgates opened,” White said. “It seemed like the companies saw life was going on and the companies realized they needed to continue on with business.”

These days the company’s production crews are working overtime and E&E is hiring employees to boost its work force by about 25 positions.

Morgison said he thought the long-term view for the business was good, thanks in large part to continuing changes in the way retailers try to attract sales.

“The shopping experience is designed to be much more like entertainment these days,” Morgison said. “That’s the type of experience they’re looking to create.”

Morgison said that means retailers have become much more conscious about every detail of their store and are demanding displays that are brighter, more sophisticated in design and can be changed quickly to take advantage of changing consumer tastes.

But perhaps most importantly, Morgison said retailers were beginning to see the value of using a special display or shelving to promote their product in a store.

“With today’s lifestyle, you don’t see many people making a shopping list anymore,” Morgison said. “It’s all about convenience. Retailers are realizing that they can’t just put their product on a standard old shelf and get the type sales they want.

“They have to have something to attract their attention. That’s been good for us because we’re basically in the advertising business here. We’re good at attracting people’s attention.”