Herff Jones acquires championship-ring business-WEB ONLY

Herff Jones Inc., an Indianapolis-based company known for selling high school rings, yearbooks and other educational products, is now in the business of making championship rings for major sports teams.

The company announced yesterday that it has acquired Masters of Design, an Attleboro, Mass.-based jewelry company with 75 employees. Herff Jones paid an undisclosed sum to buy the firm from Cookson Precious Metals Ltd., the Attleboro-based division of London-based Cookson Group Plc. The deal closed in February.

Masters of Design, founded in 1969, makes custom-designed championship and award rings, fine emblematic jewelry and custom precious-metal trophies and awards. The company produced the World Series championship rings presented to the Philadelphia Phillies this month.

The company will remain in Massachusetts and keep the Masters of Design name, said Michael Williams, vice president of human resources for Herff Jones.

Herff already owned part of the company. In December 2004, it bought fraternity and sorority jewelry assets of the Legacy Division of Masters of Design. It acquired the remainder of the firm in the latest deal.

Masters of Design has a long history of designing and manufacturing championship rings for professional sports teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Arizona Diamondbacks, Florida Marlins and others.

Herff Jones, an 89-year-old company with 500 of its 4,000 employees based in Indianapolis, has been on an acquisition spree. It acquired Framing Success Inc. of Virginia Beach, Va., and Murphy Cap & Gown Co. of St. Petersburg, Fla., early last year for undisclosed prices. It called off a planned acquisition of Austin, Texas-based competitor American Achievement Corp. late last year after regulators nixed the deal.

Based at 4501 W. 62nd St., Herff Jones is an employee-owned corporation with annual sales exceeding $500 million.