Edible Arrangements has about 940 franchised locations in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, the UK, the Middle East, Italy, Turkey, and Hong Kong. CEO Tariq Farid started Edible Arrangements in 1999 after doing software consulting for a similar business. "Please don't eat the daisies" simply doesn't apply here. Edible Arrangements creates bouquets of hand-sculpted fresh fruit that are blooming with flower-shaped pineapples, shoots of melon slices, sprigs of skewered grapes, and an assortment of apple wedges, bananas, oranges, and strawberries. Customers can also add chocolate-dipped fruit to their arrangements. In addition to bouquets, the company offers smoothies and fruit salads at some shops.

Nebraska Book Company (NBC) can help college students across the US with book learnin'. One of the largest textbook distributors in the nation, NBC sells more than 7 million books annually. It serves a client base of some 2,500 booksellers and operates more than 275 bookstores on or adjacent to college campuses that sell and rent textbooks and other merchandise. In addition, NBC provides educational materials to students in private high schools, nontraditional colleges, and corporate and correspondence classes, as well as store management and e-commerce software. The company was founded in 1915 as a single bookstore near The University of Nebraska. It is controlled by investment firm Weston Presidio.

Contract Associates, Inc. was founded in 1988 by president and CEO Maria Griego-Raby. If you need furniture for your office, you can contact Contract. Contract Associates sells commercial and office furniture at two retail outlets located in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The company also manages a store in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Contract Associates sells office furniture, desks, filing systems, and flooring from Haworth, Intellaspace, Workrite, La-Z-Boy, and other major suppliers. It also offers space planning, installation, furniture brokerage, and project management services.

Sweetwater Sound helps musicians and recording engineers make sweet music. The music technology retailer sells professional recording and live sound equipment, musical instruments (guitars, basses, keyboards, and drums), computers and software, and accessories through its website and catalogs. Manufacturers include Roland, Yamaha, and Kurzweil. The company was founded in 1979 by Chuck Surack as a four-track recording studio. The retail division grew out of Surack's need for a source for affordable, high-quality gear. Sweetwater Sound moved into its new corporate headquarters in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 2006. The following year, it acquired music retailer Lentine's Music from GE Capital for $4.5 million.

Fletcher Jones Management Group holds the title as the US's top Mercedes seller. It rolls out Benzes from a 225,000-sq.-ft. superstore in Las Vegas; a 186,000-sq-ft. store in Newport Beach, California; a dealership in Chicago; and another in Honolulu. Fletcher Jones also operates another dealership in Chicago, five more in Hawaii, an another two in California, two more in Las Vegas, and one in Reno, Nevada, selling cars from Audi, Ford, Honda, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Porsche, Toyota, and Volkswagen. The company is owned by president and CEO Fletcher Jones Jr., whose father started it in 1954 with one Los Angeles dealership.

Founded in 1986, Party City was acquired by principal owners of Amscan -- the private equity firms Berkshire Partners and Weston Presidio -- for $364 million in 2005. Party City believes you should party hearty and has everything you need to do so. Party City Corporation, the US's #1 discount party goods chain, has more than 600 company-owned and franchised stores in the US and Puerto Rico. It sells party supplies for birthdays, weddings and bridal showers, baby showers, and a slew of holiday events -- including Halloween, its biggest selling season, accounting for about 20% of annual revenues. Party City is a division of party decor wholesaler and retailer Amscan Holdings, which supplies much of its merchandise.

Big 5 Sporting Goods has outgrown its name. The company, which started out with five army surplus shops in California in 1955, is a leading sporting goods retailer with about 385 stores in a dozen mostly Western states, including California, Washington, and Arizona. The company sells brand-name (adidas, Coleman, Easton) and private-label equipment, apparel, and footwear for indoor and outdoor activities such as camping, hunting, fishing, tennis, golf, and snowboarding. Big 5 has stuck with a neighborhood-store format (averaging approximately 11,000 square feet) instead of opening massive superstores. Big 5 Sporting Goods is run by its chairman and CEO Steven Miller, the son of company co-founder Robert Miller.

Kable Media Services (KMS) distributes more than 400 magazines and periodicals for about 200 publishers throughout North America and, to a lesser extent,overseas. It prints and distributes publications such as Archie Comics and Ms. Magazine. Its Kable Fulfillment Services division provides magazine subscription services and merchandise fulfillment for publishers and marketers. The Kable Distribution Services division is a leading full service international periodical distributor. KMS has offices in New York, Illinois, Ohio, Colorado, California, and the UK. The company is a subsidiary of the AMREP Corp.

As we begin our 29th year in business, I want to say thank you to all of our customers who have contributed to our great success over the past 28 years. 2009 was filled with unprecedented economic change that will alter the auto industry forever. As a result, 2010 will be filled with all new challanges for us. I want you to know as your Ford, Lincoln and Mercury dealer I will continue to do business the same way that I always have; by treating my customers with respect and fairness. I know that Ford Motor Company and Allan Vigil Ford Lincoln Mercury are positioned to succeed, and it's only with your help that we can do it

W & G Foyle operates about a handful of Foyles bookstores in London. Founded in 1903 by brothers William and Gilbert Foyle as a depot for their own used textbooks, the bookstore has been located at Charing Cross Rd. ever since, though as of 2006 it has three additional retail locations and a retail web site. Besides books, Foyles also stocks such items as printed music, gifts, stationery, and assorted memorabilia. Chairman Christopher Foyle is the third generation of the family (with cousin, vice chairman Bill Samuel) to have a hand in running the company.

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