By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

U.S. Playing Card Co. of Norwood will be sold to a New York company for $232 million in cash.

The world's largest maker of playing cards said Thursday that it had reached a deal with Jarden Corp. of Rye, N.Y. Jarden, a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, makes consumer products such as toothpicks, matches and plastic cutlery, but is not in the playing card business.

Part of the deal, which will close this summer, is that U.S. Playing Card will remain in Norwood under current management, president Greg Simko said.

"I think it's a great opportunity for the business," Simko said. "It gives us an opportunity to grow with a public company."

Growth opportunities will include diversifying into products such as jigsaw puzzles, where U.S. Playing Card does less than $1 million a year in business, Simko said. It also wants to expand its production of poker chips, building on the renewed popularity of the card game.

Simko wouldn't give profit numbers, but said U.S. Playing Card has been consistently profitable for the last decade. He said sales growth has been steady at about 3.5 percent per year.

Simko said greater diversification would help the company establish new sources of revenue. It has been under increasing competitive pressure.

Founded in 1867 and renamed U.S. Playing Card in 1894, the company has built itself into an international market leader with a low public profile. It was owned by a series of larger companies through the 1970s and 1980s, then purchased by a local investment group that includes Bill DeWitt and Dudley Taft in 1994.

U.S. Playing Card reached about $130 million in sales last year, bolstered by the sale of about 4 million decks of its "Iraqi Most Wanted" line.

It employs about 680 workers, including 510 in Norwood, 165 at a unit in Spain, and several more in a sales office in Toronto.

The Norwood facility includes a museum featuring original playing cards and memorabilia dating as far back as the 15th century, according to the company's Internet site.

Simko said the sellers insisted on keeping the business here.

"It really ensures the business will stay in Cincinnati," he said. "The owners were really concerned about that."

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com