POMPANO BEACH—FL—Valley Forge Fabrics Inc. has purchased Contract Décor International, a contract workroom for custom bedding and draperies based in Brockton, MA with a national client list. The deal closed the week of October 23 and the purchase price was not disclosed nor any other terms of the purchase. Diana Dobin, Co-President of Valley Forge confirmed the purchase. CDI was founded in 1994. Michael Handler is the owner and Susan Drake is the General Manager. Neither could be reached for comment about the purchase. Michael Dobin, Co-President of Valley Forge was in Europe this week and could not be reached for comment. Industry observers question the purchase by Valley Forge. “Why would a contract fabric specialist purchase a workroom,” one veteran asked. “The first thing that would happen is that any converter who uses CDI as a workroom would take their business elsewhere. Converters would not want Valley Forge to know anything about their pricing structure.” Does Valley Forge do enough workroom business to justify such a purchase? That remains to be seen. This could be a brilliant strategic move for Valley Forge, the largest contract fabric specialist in the world but nobody knows the answer to that question except Valley Forge principals. Does this indicate the further verticalization of the contract furnishings industry where a contract fabric specialist squeezes out a few more margin percentage points by having its own workroom? Will it speed delivery to the client? Several other jobbers own their own residential workrooms including Carole Fabrics Inc., an Augusta, GA based division of Hunter Douglas; Kasmir Fabrics in Dallas and R.M. Coco in Cape Girardeau, MO., which is owned by The Carr Textile Group in Atlanta. Stay tuned for further developments on this acquisition.