Day Runner’s March Calendar Includes Special Date : Finance: Hoping to raise $12 million, firm will make its first public stock offering.

FULLERTON —  It’s a safe bet that the folks at Day Runner Inc. will soon be marking a special date in their daily planners with red letters.

Some day in March, the supplier of daily planners, calendars and other personal organizers plans to make its first offering of stock to the public, hoping to raise $12 million to $14 million.

The company said Thursday that it will offer 1 million shares at a price of $12 to $14 each. Major shareholders of the Fullerton company plan to sell an additional 400,000 shares, according to a prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Founded in 1980 as Harper House Inc. by Boyd and Felice Willat in the garage of their West Hollywood home, Day Runner saw its sales soar to $53.1 million in 1991. The company, which claims to be the leading supplier of paper-based personal organizers to retailers, says its products are sold at more than 6,000 retail stores across the country. Its customers include such stores as Staples, the Office Depot and Wal-Mart.

The Day Runner personal organizer--a loose-leaf date book that can be divided into categories such as “objectives” and “project plan outline”--has become something of a business bible for the upwardly mobile.

The Willats own 50.4% of Day Runner but will own just 35% after the public offering. Boyd Willat was chairman of the company until August, 1988, and remains a company director. Felice Willat, the company’s president until 1990, now holds the title of vice president of consumer affairs and is a company director.

The Willats brought in a new management team to run the company in 1986, when sales were approaching $10 million. Mark A. Vidovich was named chief executive.

Vidovich expanded on the Day Runner line and increased sales by exporting the product overseas. The company’s sales grew from $11.1 million in 1987 to $38.8 million in 1990. It posted a profit of $3.3 million on sales of $53 million last year.

Day Runner moved its corporate offices from Los Angeles to Fullerton last year. It has 515 full-time employees, many of whom work at its Fullerton factory.

“We took a nice little company with a nice little well-designed product and made it a much bigger company with a much bigger product,” Vidovich, 42, said in a recent interview. He declined to comment on the stock offering.

Day Runner plans to use proceeds from the stock sale to repay bank borrowings, as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes, according to the prospectus.