St. Louis-based Incentive Concepts (asi/62536) has reached an agreement to acquire Cortland, IL-based Elite Creations (asi/51804), effective January 1, 2019, both companies announced on Monday.

As part of the acquisition, the current Elite Creations staff will become employees of Incentive Concepts. Ted Moravec will lead the transition project and become vice president at Incentive Concepts.

“This is a rare opportunity for two companies who share similar values, and a mutual respect for one another to combine their operations to better serve the premium, incentive and corporate gifting markets,” Joe Reinberg, president and CEO of Incentive Concepts, said in a press release. “Our companies have minimal existing product overlaps and even share a number of the same independent sales representatives.”

Fulfillment operations for the Elite Creations brands – which include Kate Spade New York, Honda Outdoor Power Equipment, Magic Chef and Lauren by Ralph Lauren, among other popular brands – will most likely transition to Incentive Concepts in the second half of 2019. The current Incentive Concepts sales force of independent representatives and in-house sales staff will manage the sales channel for the combined companies. All order processing for these brands will be handled by Incentive Concepts starting January 2, 2019.

“This is a great opportunity for the brands and staff that have built Elite Creations to benefit from the sales and marketing power of Incentive Concepts to provide growth and opportunity,” said Dave Olson, president of Elite.