International Envelope Co history

Prior to 1845, hand-made envelopes were all that were available for use, both commercial and domestic.

Established in 1886 by William Berkowitz, the Company specialized in popular advertising novelties and business stationery.

The Company’s first envelope patent was issued in 1909.

The Company began expanding in 1924 with the addition of a manufacturing facility and sales office in Des Moines, Iowa.

In 1937, Berkowitz Envelope acquired the assets and patents of Tension Envelope.

In 1944, the company’s plant and sales organizations were united under the well-known Tension name as Tension Envelope Corporation.

William Ungar, a Holocaust survivor of two Polish concentration camps, came to New York City in 1946 on the first ship transporting displaced persons to America after World War II. Arriving with $15 in his pocket, he found work with F.L. Smith, a manufacturer of envelope-making machines.

Ungar founded National Envelope in a tiny space on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1952.

In 1960 Rockmont diversified into the production of school supplies, offering a full line of typing paper, filler paper, notebooks, spiral-bound theme books, memo pads, and tablets.

Pak-Well had revenues of more than $13 million in 1962, and operated plants in Denver, Portland, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Honolulu.

In early 1963 Pak-Well was taken public through the sale of 153,620 shares of common stock at $11.50 per share.

1971: Company launches National Envelope--North in Worcester, Massachusetts, as it expands throughout New England.

The company posted net earnings of $1.74 million on sales of $53.8 million in 1973.

In 1988, Bill Berkley, great-grandson of the founder, became President and CEO. Bert Berkley continued as chairman of the board.

Pak-Well then became part of Georgia-Pacific Corporation when that paper giant acquired Great Northern for $4.5 billion in 1990.

Mail-Well was launched with 16 manufacturing plants that had produced about 13 billion envelopes during 1993.

Sterling also purchased, for $4.4 million, Pavey, which it merged with the Georgia-Pacific envelope business in February 1994 to create Mail-Well, with Mahoney serving as chairman and CEO.

For 1995 the company posted net income of $8 million on net sales of $596.8 million.

In December 1996 Mail-Well's stock moved from the NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange.

Revenues stood at $897.6 million in 1997, with net income growing to $22.2 million.

1998: National Envelope moves into the Southwest with the purchase of Texas-based envelope manufacturer Colortree.

While the acquisition pace slowed somewhat in 1999, Mail-Well made a significant move in the middle of the year when it gained a European beachhead through the $102 million acquisition of Porter Chadburn plc, a publicly traded London-based label manufacturer.

Mail-Well's debt-to-capital ratio jumped to an unhealthy 74 percent, and by mid-2000 total debt exceeded $1 billion.

Reilly took on the additional post of chairman later in 2001.

As the advertising market remained in its prolonged slump, financial results for 2002 were little improved over the previous year--a net loss of $202.1 million on $1.73 billion in revenues--although the firm did manage to eke out earnings of $2 million before restructuring and impairment charges.

The divestiture program was completed in March 2003 with the sale of part of the company's digital graphics operations.

In January 2005 Reilly announced plans to resign from his positions with the company, pending the hiring of his replacement.

After rebranding itself from Tension Envelope to Tension Corporation in 2011, the Company now operates under three divisions: Envelope, Packaging & Automation, and International.