The Contender Entertainment Group (CEG), which was acquired by Entertainment One in mid-2007, is a home video distributor and book publisher focusing on children's entertainment and television classics. The company is quite the contender, too. It was established in 1994, began trading in 1995, and a decade later is the largest independent distributor of DVDs and videos in the country. Products include special interest films such as cult classics, animated children's features, fitness videos, Asian films, and classic television series. All videos and DVDs are distributed within the UK.

Aldeasa S.A. company is owned by Italy's Autogrill, which bought out its joint venture partner Altadis in April 2008. Aldeasa, Spain's #1 operator of duty-free shops, runs about 270 travel shops, gift boutiques, and outlets in museums, historic and cultural centers, and other tourist locations. Most of its stores are in Spain, but it also has operations in about a dozen other countries, including Portugal, Chile, Peru, and the US. Besides the usual tobacco and liquor products, Aldeasa sells cosmetics, watches, food, and more -- much of it brand names; it also sells online. Many of Aldeasa's stores were duty-free until the EU prohibited such trade for intra-European travel.

Edwin Watts Golf is a leading golf specialty retail chain in the US. The company operates about 70 golf specialty stores in 10 mostly southeastern states and Texas. Its stores sell clubs, golf balls, bags, training aids, and more. The company also sells golf equipment by catalog and online, and it operates a club leasing program for novices and golfers who like to try out state-of-the-art gear. Edwin Watts Golf was founded in 1968 as a small pro shop at the municipal golf course in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, by brothers Edwin and Ronnie Watts. It is owned by an affiliate of investment firm Sun Capital Partners.

The firm was founded in 1991 by Graham and Ursula Hodson and is jointly owned by the Hodsons and managing director Colin Hills, who has run the business since 1997. Fresh Bouquets knows how to grow its business. The floral firm grows, sources, and distributes 100,000 bunches of flowers a week to service stations and convenience stores across the UK under the Flowerfete label. Fresh Bouquets grows its own flowers in company-owned nurseries and supplements those with selected imported flowers from Israel, South Africa, Spain, and Turkey. Through its FDL e-commerce division, Fresh Bouquets has diversified beyond flowers to offer higher-margin items such as sunglasses, umbrellas, corkscrews, and other gadgets.

Lookers sells the kind of cars that get noticed. The company operates through about 100 franchised auto dealerships in the UK. It also does business as the Charles Hurst Group in England and Northern Ireland and as Taggarts in Scotland. The company sells new and used vehicles from such brands as Aston Martin, Bentley, Citroën, Honda, Jeep, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Lookers also sells motorcycles from two dealerships. In addition to its franchise operations, the company's business lines include aftermarket auto parts (FPS Distribution) and used car supermarkets (Bristol Trade Centre and Ian Shipton Cars). Lookers was founded in 1908. Millionaire car trader Tony Bramall holds about a 20% stake in the company.

Complete Office was formed by the merger of two competing San Diego office supply companies: Grove Office Supply and Del Mar Office Products. Looking for supplies and furniture to make your office complete? Complete Office of California can help. Through warehouses in Southern California and Wisconsin, the company distributes workplace necessities and accessories, including paper, writing implements, custom stamps, computer supplies, cleaning agents, and break room items, as well as office furniture. It also provides space planning and furniture installation services. Customers have included AMN Healthcare, the San Diego Padres, and Graham Webb International.

B&T primarily serves two types of markets. Its core business distributes books, videos, and music, and provides value-added services to thousands of school, public, and specialty libraries worldwide. The firm's retail unit supplies storefront and Internet book and music retailers, as well as independent booksellers, with a million book titles and about 385,000 DVD and CD titles. On the Internet (where it formerly operated as Informata.com), B&T offers B2B e-commerce fulfillment services. B&T is owned by investment firm Castle Harlan.

American Farms certainly hopes that its corporate strategies lead to perennial success. Established in 1991 with 10 acres, the company, a wholesale grower of flowering pot crops, now comprises more than 100 acres in Florida. It produces more than 100 varieties of annuals and herbaceous perennials, as well as flowering tropicals, landscape ferns and grasses, seasonal crops, and more. The majority of American Farms' sales are in the state of Florida, where it's one of the top growers of flowering plants, and more than half are to mass merchandisers (Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart) in the southeastern US. In addition, the company sells to independent garden centers and landscapers.

Founded in 1947, Perez Trading is today one of the most experienced and recognized international marketers of paper, paperboard, and graphic arts equipment to Latin America, the Caribbean and southeastern United States.Our traditional values and commitment to the region offer our customers an open door to the industry with a trading partner who truly understands and respects their needs. We consistently support our customers by helping them navigate through the changing market conditions of an industry in continuous transformation. Our enduring responsiveness and expertise has established us as one of the most sophisticated and reliable suppliers in our region. We have the resources and solutions that benefit our customers whether they are starting a new business or expanding an existing one. We know the value of integrity, hard work and perseverance, and welcome the continuing challenges and opportunities that inspire our business every day. Our mission is to ensure our customers’ commercial growth and success by providing the most suitable products and most efficient commercial services available in the industry today.

Proftech was founded in 1980, but it was first conceived the company in a college paper Montiel wrote about recession-proof industries. No matter what the economic outlook, people will always need office supplies. That was president Jose Montiel's theory when he started Proftech, a major distributor of office products and supplies to customers throughout the US. The company offers next-day delivery with no minimum order. Aside from the customary pens and notepads, Proftech supplies innovative products such as SMART Technologies' "smart board" and its own oil clean-up material, HTP. The company's products are distributed through about 50 facilities nationwide and can be ordered over the phone or online.

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