Hallmark Cards says revenues slipped 2% last year

Hallmark Cards Inc. said this week that its earnings remained steady last year despite a 2 percent drop in revenue.

The Kansas City-based company has been cutting costs by paring staff and energy use and consolidating some manufacturing operations.

The company said its total revenue for 2014 dropped to $3.8 billion from $3.9 billion in 2013. The privately held company doesn’t report earnings but said profits “remained steady” compared with a year earlier.

Hallmark North America and Hallmark International both recorded revenue declines as did Crayola, which is owned by Hallmark.

Crayola, which has been a past money maker for the company, is building a family attraction, Crayola Experience Orlando, in Florida, to open this summer.

On the revenue up side were Hallmark subsidiaries Crown Media, which operates the Hallmark Channel and other programming, and the company’s Crown Center real estate operations.

Publicly traded Crown Media, of which Hallmark is the majority owner, earlier this month reported 2014 earnings of $94.5 million, up from $67.7 million in 2013, partly because of a double-digit jump in advertising sales.

Hallmark said Crown Center contributed to revenue gains because of “continued strength as a premium office location” in Kansas City. The mixed-use development surrounding Hallmark’s corporate headquarters also is performing well as a “family destination for festivals and attractions,” the company said.

In addition to offices, Crown Center includes a Legoland attraction, an aquarium, the company-owned Halls department store, a Westin hotel, assorted other retail and restaurant operations, stage theaters, and residential units.

Recent years have been financially challenging for Hallmark as it struggled in an increasingly online world to shore up its core greeting card and gift wrap business, particularly as some of its Gold Crown stores have been closing around the country.

It is testing a “shop within a shop” setup in J.C. Penney stores and has opened its first HMK stores on the Country Club Plaza and in top-tier shopping centers in the Dallas-Forth Worth area and Denver.

Hallmark also announced in January that it was gaining licensing rights to more products, such as Mattel’s Barbie and Hot Wheel lines, to add to its popular Keepsake Ornaments collection.

The company last year completed a major retail remodeling for Halls at Crown Center after it closed its Halls store on the Plaza.

The company said in February that its Litho-Krome printing subsidiary would shut down its Midland, Ga., operations in the third quarter this year.

This story was originally published March 27, 2015 at 1:00 AM with the headline "Hallmark Cards says revenues slipped 2% last year."