Posted on Newsday Long Island (Business Report) on Monday, June 4, 1999

PRIVATE RANKINGS

"100 PRIVATE COMPANIES WITH HEADQUARTERS IN NASSAU AND SUFFOLK COUNTIES THAT HAD THE LARGEST 1997/1998 REVENUE."

CONVERMAT WAS RANKED 76 OUT OF 100.

Convermat Corporation
45 North Station Plaza
Suite 400
Great Neck, 11021-5011
516-487-7100
Industry: Brokering specialty papers
CEO: Shaw Shahery
Total employees: 25
Local employees: 22

The company was founded in Manhattan by Shaw Shahery in 1976, shortly after his graduation from New York University.

Convermat, which does business in more than 80 countries, also has branch offices in Plantation, Fla., Appleton, WI, and Vancouver, BC Canada. These offices handle clients in the Caribbean and Canada, respectively.

Shahery, president and director of international sales and development, and his brother, Frank, director of marketing, oversee an operation that provides brokering of jumbo rolls of specialty papers, tissue paper, pulp and napkins to mills or paper converters who produce private labels of consumer and institutional products - everything from Kleenex and Charmin labels to store brands. Shahery describes the field as a growing industry, and said business has been increasing steadily at a rate of between 15 percent and 20 percent annually.

Convermat established its Web site in 1997, and reports there that the business "holds a major share of tissue sales in the United States and in a number of growing and emerging countries" (p. C40).