Reports are circulating that BlueSky Brands Inc., the parent company of catalogs Paragon Gifts, Bits and Pieces, Bits and Pieces UK, National Wildlife Direct and Winterthur, has closed its doors as of March 14. The company also owns fulfillment provider AB&C Group, which has also reportedly closed.
“As we became aware of [BlueSky’s] business challenges, we grew concerned, and on March 13 we terminated our licensing agreement with it,” said Victoria Saltzman, a spokesperson for Winterthur.
Saltzman cited concerns that BlueSky was not meeting its obligations to vendors or customers as the reason for terminating the licensing agreement. “It shuttered its business on the 14th with no notice. We understand [BlueSky] has now ceased business operations,” she added.
Saltzman said there were no plans on her company’s end at this time for a potential new catalog distributor.
Calls to BlueSky and its other titles were either not returned or routed to disconnected numbers. Web sites for the catalogs posted “unavailable” of “out of service” messages on their order pages, with no further explanation.
BlueSky was established as a holding company in 2005 by Reliant Equity Investors. Reliant and BlueSky representatives were unavailable. A search of public records did not turn up any bankruptcy filings for BlueSky at press time.
