Pierce, a 20-year-old, family-owned company, has until now limited its operation to the area between Washington and Hartford, Conn. The acquisition brings Pierce into new markets in Boston; Providence, R.I.; Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Houston; Los Angeles; Dallas, and Chicago.
Pierce now employs 300 workers; the new entity is expected to have 700 employees.
Pierce specializes in tending records that are not needed in company offices but that must be retained to comply with government regulations or for use in potential litigation. Most of the records are kept for five to seven years.
The company picks up records and stores them in cardboard, computer-coded boxes. If a client needs a document, Pierce retrieves and delivers it to the client's office.
The company's revenues have grown from $9,000 in 1969 - when the company was founded by Leo Pierce, father of Jay Peter Pierce, the current president. Jay Peter Pierce manages the company with his brothers, Leo and Michael; a sister, Molly, and three brothers-in-law.
The current management will run the new company, Jay Peter Pierce said yesterday.
In the Philadelphia area, Pierce has 1,600 customers and stores records in four buildings in Delaware County.
Pierce's clients include International Business Machines Corp., the CBS and ABC television networks, United Technologies Corp., Campbell Soup Co., General Electric Co. and most of the area's large law and accounting firms.
The company enjoyed steady but slow growth until the early 1980s, when business began to soar from revenues of $4 million in 1982.
The company has grown as businesses have contracted out record storage in the same way they have hired outside firms to run cafeterias and mail rooms.
