G. Neil expects to be sold by year’s end

Three months after its parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, human-resources products cataloger G. Neil Cos. is on the selling block. But G. Neil president Terry Jukes expects that the $50 million cataloger will be sold by the end of the year.

Brea, CA-based signage and office products manufacturer/marketer Centis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Aug. 1. According to a release, the $155 million Centis was burdened by excessive debt. In addition to G. Neil, Centis owns a wholesale division and three other catalogs, Century Business Solutions, Century Photo Products, and Light Impressions, which are also for sale.

Sunrise, FL-based G. Neil, which employs about 350 workers, is one of the nation’s largest suppliers of human-resources products and services, including signage, motivational gifts, and employee records software. The company was acquired by Centis, then known as 20th Century Plastics, in 1998.

Centis’s filing with the Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California in Santa Ana lists Quad/Graphics, which it owes $2.2 million, as its largest creditor, followed by Stora Enso North America ($483,795), R.R. Donnelly Receivables ($365,257), Continental Envelope, ($171,817), and Graphics Illustrated ($123,602), among others.

Jukes says that G. Neil is still mailing a catalog. Because of Centis’s cash constraints, however, “more than half of our catalogs mailed during [the summer] were late,” he says. Centis had rectified matter by September, Jukes adds.