TPCi purchased Millennium Print Group

General
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​​​​​​​Full press release:

**THE POKÉMON COMPANY INTERNATIONAL ENTERS INTO AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE MILLENNIUM PRINT GROUP

Bellevue, Wash. – April 18, 2022 – The Pokémon Company International, the company responsible for management of the globally popular Pokémon brand outside of Asia, has entered into agreement to purchase North Carolina-based Millennium Print Group, a manufacturer and printer of trading cards and associated packaging in the US. The two companies have been business partners since 2015 with Millennium Print Group serving as longtime printers of The Pokémon Company International’s best-selling product, the Pokémon Trading Card Game.**

With this acquisition, The Pokémon Company International aims to further develop Millennium Print Group’s capabilities, infrastructure, and scale to become a premier printer of trading cards, serving the broader industry. Millennium Print Group will continue to operate as a separate, autonomous organization, but will gain both investment and industry- expertise from The Pokémon Company International.

“The talented team at Millennium Print Group has been an important partner to The Pokémon Company International for many years, helping us bring the Pokémon Trading Card Game to our fans with the quality they expect,” said Kenji Okubo, president of The Pokémon Company International. “By joining forces in a more meaningful way, our goal is to enhance the ways our organizations work together and continue to bring the highest quality Pokémon TCG products to market. Simultaneously, we aim to develop Millennium into an even better, bigger, state-of-the-art version of their already exceptional organization, benefitting not just Pokémon, but all of their customers.”

“Millennium Print Group has had the pleasure of growing alongside the Pokémon brand and Pokémon Trading Card Game for nearly a decade,” said Terry Pegram, CEO, Millennium Print Group. “In that time, we have had the opportunity to develop an amazing relationship with the expert team at The Pokémon Company International, an organization with a special culture who lives its values every day. This exciting new chapter for Millennium Print Group has tremendous beneficial impact for both our business and its employees. We look forward to continuing to support our team members and customers while growing Millennium to be a premier printer for trading cards in the world.”

To learn more about The Pokémon Company International visit www.Pokemon.com and to learn more about Millennium Print Group visit www.mprintgroup.com.

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About The Pokémon Company International

The Pokémon Company International, a subsidiary of The Pokémon Company in Japan, manages the property outside of Asia and is responsible for brand management, licensing and marketing, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, the animated TV series, home entertainment, and the official Pokémon website. Pokémon was launched in Japan in 1996 and today is one of the most popular children’s entertainment properties in the world. For more information, visit www.pokemon.com.

About Millennium Print Group

Millennium Print Group (MPG), a division of Park Communications, is a unique and distinctive printer located in North Carolina specializing in TCG printing. Millennium was acquired in 2014 and has made significant investments to grow the company into a premier print-provider in the region. For more information, visit www.mprintgroup.com.

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I hope this is great news and they plan on either upping quality standards for cards or they plan on using more proprietary security standards in card printing. I really want it to be so they can make amazing new styles of cards without worrying as much about printing difficulties and manufacturer limitations.

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what does this mean for the modern alt art singles market

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it means sell everything to crash the market, so i can buy the cards i want for cheap :wink:

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Print all of the cards and hopefully up QC.

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I literally live like 20 minutes from tpci HQ and can never find cards on store shelves. This is interesting!

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Long story short: money printer go brrrrrrr

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Thats because distribution does not work on a proximity basis where they ship to the closest stores and spread out from there

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Pokemon said, I don’t want to hear the word scalper ever again!

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From the wording it sounds like Millennium will still be printing things besides Pokémon cards. Unless I am misunderstanding.

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They should reprint all sets for the 30th anniversary except replace the set logo with the 30th anniversary logo.

And have texture on all of them so it’s different. Except the already textured cards which can just have the logo difference.

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I’m sure pokemon estimated how much product they could have sold in 20/21 if they had printing capacity. If there is another boom they can now just switch Millennium to 100% pokemon if needed.

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It means modern will never be considered an “investment” ever again.

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I don’t think that’s how things work. There are such things as contracts. The can’t just stop printing other stuff and say: let’s do only the cards we sell. They now do also earn money on printing the cards and not just selling them.

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Not sure how it works in the printing trade, but there are priority clauses in other manufacturing trades. For example in food production some name brands can get priority over off brand production contracts.