April 2007 House of Cards Cartamundi’s reshuffling removes Sullivan County from the deck By Alexei Smirnov
Sometimes nothing can stop a divorce from
happening. Belgian card printing company Cartamundi Inc. has been married to Kingsport and Sullivan County for nearly 11 years. At its 100,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art location within the Northeast Tennessee Business Park, the company printed casino cards for Las Vegas gaming joints, as well as collectibles, such as Pokemon and Disney cards. The cards, printed and cut with enormous precision in Kingsport, starred in the most recent James Bond flick, Casino Royale.
The 200-year-old company has been expanding in Europe, acquiring a plant in England and buying printing rights for Harry Potter playing cards in 22 European countries. But the Kingsport plant was its sole printing location in the United States, pulling in roughly $1 million a year—until seasonal orders began drying up at the end of 2006. “[Cartamundi] did well last year, but they lost a contract to another company, so they did not have enough upcoming orders to sustain business here,” says Betty Martin of Networks, the Sullivan County Economic Development Partnership. “And that’s a shame.”
Martin, along with her boss, former state legislator Richard Venable, the local chamber crew and Kingsport Mayor Dennis Phillips, visited Cartamundi at least twice during the last several months to see if they could do something—anything—to keep operations afloat. When Cartamundi arrived in Kingsport in 1996, the coup landed a major international player in the region and brought some international flavor to Northeast Tennessee’s business climate.
Officials say that every penny spent by the state on five-year tax abatements and employee training for Cartamundi has paid off, so they were ready to dole out more at the time of need. “But it didn’t even get to the point of offering incentives,” Martin says. In an effort to shore up U.S. printing orders, Cartamundi bought competitor, Robert Yaquinto Printing Co. of Dallas, Texas. After doing the math, the company found it more economical to move its Kingsport equipment to Texas and shut down its Tennessee operations. End of story. After that decision was reached, local officials heard nothing from Cartamundi.
According to several area entrepreneurs, Cartamundi was not conspicuously active within the local community. “Not at the level of Eastman Chemical or Weyerhaeuser Co.,” says local chamber boss Miles Burdine. Still, according to Mayor Phillips, “100 jobs is a big loss.” It’s an even bigger loss if one uses the metrics of the local economic development partnership, which multiplies every job gained or lost by 2.8 people whose livelihood it may affect.
Cartamundi’s departure struck another blow to the area’s manufacturing sector. Last year, printing company Quebecor World, which had acquired the old Kingsport Press, shut down operations there, phasing out 400 jobs.
But not all is lost for the soon-to-be-vacant Cartamundi site. Phillips says he is talking to several smaller printing companies, including local printer Inove Graphics, which is considering expansion. Instead of catering to finicky foreigners, helping home-grown businesses may be a better strategy after all.
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