Harte Hanks history

1928: Harte and Hanks establish a partnership.

In 1945 the partners took on their first corporate employee, Bruce Meador, who would later become trustee of Hanks’s estate.

The company incorporated as Harte-Hanks Newspapers, Inc. in 1948.

The chain was acquitted of the charges in 1959.

In 1962, the company took full ownership of San Antonio Express-News, its largest circulation newspaper.

In 1968, the company relocated from Abilene to San Antonio.

Their first step, in 1971, was to consolidate the 27 corporations into a single entity, called Harte-Hanks Newspapers, Inc.

In 1984, the company's managers took it private, later going public again in 1993. It made its first IPO on March 8, 1972, later diversifying into television and radio properties.

By 1974, the company's revenues had reached $79 million, with profits of $6.5 million, compared to income of around $1.5 million at the time of the company's IPO.

In 1975 Harte-Hanks bought a second television station, WTLV in Jacksonville, Florida, an NBC affiliate.

Revenues jumped to $243 million in 1979.

By 1983, CDM represented 28 percent of the company's revenues.

But the emphasis on CDM, as well as Harte-Hanks's plans to invest aggressively in cable television, had begun to make investors nervous: by 1984, the company's stock was trading below $20 per share, despite being valued as high as $30 per share.

There are about 3,000 shoppers in the United States, with a combined circulation of 51 million a week, up from 42 million in 1985, according to the Association of Free Community Papers.

Shopper circulation has been increasing while that of daily newspapers fell to 58.6 million last year from 60.9 million in 1986, according to Veronis, Suhler & Associates, a media industry investment firm.

By 1988, revenues had grown to $450 million, with operating income of $70 million.

Marbut retired in 1991, turning the company over to Larry Franklin, his longtime chief operating officer and executive vice-president.

By 1992, the company had reduced total long-term debt to less than $220 million.

Revenues grew to $463 million in 1993.

Together, Harte-Hanks divisions produced nearly $533 million in revenues in 1995 for net income over $10 million.

In February 1996, the company announced its intention to purchase DiMark, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based direct marketing firm serving the pharmaceutical, telecommunications, and healthcare industries.

The company's first purchase came in July 1997, when Harte-Hanks agreed to acquire four shoppers from The Walt Disney Company, for $104 million.

Harte-Hanks took one of its first steps toward achieving this goal in December 1998 when it acquired Spectral Resources Inc., a pharmaceutical data provider that specialized in Internet and CD-ROM technology.

In February 2004, Harte-Hanks acquired the British software company Avellino Technologies Ltd., integrating its product line into the Trillium Division.

In 2006, Harte Hanks acquired Global Address, a software company based in the United Kingdom that developed International Address Validation technology.

In 2008, Global Address was renamed to Trillium Software.

In 2010, Harte Hanks acquired Information Arts, a UK-based data insight, data management and database-marketing firm.

The PennySaver and website PennySaverUSA.com, a nationwide network of local advertising content online for consumers and businesses, were sold to OpenGate Capital in 2013.

In 2015, Harte Hanks acquired San Mateo, California-based digital marketing firm 3Q Digital.

Trillium Software was later sold to Syncsort in 2016.

In 2018, Harte Hanks sold 3Q back to an entity owned by previous 3Q Digital owners.