The Levy Group, a New York City-based promotional products outfit headed by industry veterans Scott Levy and Stuart Weisenfeld, has joined Top 40 distributor HALO Branded Solutions (asi/356000).

From left, Marc Simon, HALO; Jim Stutz, HALO; Scott Levy, The Levy Group; Stuart Weisenfeld, The Levy Group.

Executives for Sterling, IL-based HALO described The Levy Group as a team of veteran industry selling professionals that serve blue chip end-clients in the sports, entertainment and beverage markets.

“Our relationship with the Levy team is mutually beneficial,” said Jim Stutz, HALO’s executive vice president of sales and business development. “Their creativity and resourcefulness to their clients is outstanding and will provide insight for the HALO organization. Ultimately, this collaboration will positively impact their current clients and sharpen HALO’s presence in the key markets they currently serve”

Levy said the resources HALO provides were a big draw, as those services and supports are important to meeting the growing needs of clients. “We did extensive due diligence and found HALO’s expertise in global sourcing and distribution, client-centric marketing, and technology would allow us to offer more robust solutions for our clients,” Levy said.

Levy and Weisenfeld were previously leaders of distributorship Corporate Edge, which Levy founded in 1990. A large firm, Corporate Edge was a vertically integrated company with offices in New York City, New Jersey and Georgia. It also had an in-house screen printing and embroidery facility, as well as a warehouse and fulfillment center, in New Jersey.

With Levy as CEO, Weisenfeld was president of Corporate Edge until Top 40 promo distributor InnerWorkings (asi/168860) acquired the distributorship in 2007. Levy and Weisenfeld joined InnerWorkings at that point. Levy’s LinkedIn indicates that he was a managing director of InnerWorkings’ New York promo division, while Weisenfeld’s LinkedIn indicates that he was a vice president of enterprise sales for the firm.

“We’re thrilled to have Scott, Stuart and their talented group selling under the HALO brand,” said HALO CEO Marc Simon. “Whenever people of such high caliber are drawn to HALO, it reinforces the many investments we make every day to provide the maximum value to clients and our HALO account executives.” With reported 2019 North American promotional product revenue of $787 million, HALO ranked second on Counselor’s most recent list of the largest distributors in the industry. The company’s five-year average annual growth rate through 2019 was 25%.

Speaking to Counselor, Simon noted that The Levy Group will be selling under the HALO name. He added that the partnering with The Levy Group is not an acquisition, but rather the organization “represents selling and sales support professionals that have joined HALO. It is very common for selling teams to join HALO to utilize our resources to help them grow their business.”

With reported 2019 North American promotional product revenue of $787 million, HALO ranked second on Counselor’s most recent list of the largest distributors in the industry. The company’s five-year average annual growth rate through 2019 was 25%.