Baker & Taylor Acquires Blackwell North America, Will Merge into YBP

Consolidation of market for academic libraries; B&T's growth strategy

Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 12/07/2009

• Plan to offer best of both services under YBP
• B&T to source UK titles through Blackwell and vice versa 
• Expands focus on academic libraries 

In a consolidation and reorganization of the market for supplying academic libraries, Baker & Taylor Inc. (B&T) today announced it has acquired Blackwell Book Services North America (BNA), plus Blackwell’s Australia-based James Bennett bookseller.

In turn, Blackwell UK will acquire Baker & Taylor’s much smaller UK Lindsay and Croft business. Financial terms of the agreement were not announced, nor did B&T indicate how the acquisition would affect its market share. (PW reports that the acquisition adds about 1000 accounts and the transition will take a year.)

Under the acquisition BNA will be integrated into B&T’s U.S.-based YBP Library Services; unique services such as YBP’s GOBI bibliographic service and Blackwell’s Table of Contents Catalog Enrichment Service will be offered to all customers. The end product will be better processes, thanks to synergies, George Coe, president of B&T’s Library & Education division, told LJ.

(Coe discussed the B&T strategy going forward in a 9/1/09 LJ profile.)

The acquisition potentially adds BNA's 237 employees and James Bennett's 95 to B&T's staff, though some reduction in the U.S. force is expected in the consolidation.

While customers ultimately will be serviced by B&T, Coe said the new owner will evaluate the operation of Blackwell’s current offices and distribution center. He will continue oversee the newly enlarged YBP.

B&T strategy
Officials from B&T, which is majority owned by Castle Harlan Partners, a private equity fund, said that the acquisition was part of a strategy for growth.

CEO Tom Morgan told LJ, “We're not rich in resources, but with the right opportunities, we will certainly keep our eyes open.” He noted that the company is focusing on the transition from physical to digital materials, and recognizes the buying patterns of academic libraries.

In the last year, public libraries have seen pullback on their acquisitions budget, “so we’ve had to work hard in terms of attempting to grow our market share,” Morgan said. “We think we’re the best servicing distributor in the segment,” he said, “[but] we think we can improve upon that, pulling together best practices.”

Coe pointed out that academic libraries, compared to other markets, are embracing digital materials at a faster pace, citing reference materials and STM books. “The academic market has been one of our primary focus points,” he said, pledging to continue to increase the company’s services and market share. 

More on the deal
Also, according to B&T, YBP and Blackwell UK have entered into a reciprocal agreement under which YBP will source all UK-published academic material from Blackwell and, in turn, Blackwell UK will source all U.S.-published academic material from YBP.

“I am confident that this reciprocal agreement will enable Blackwell and YBP Library Services to build on their respective strengths and continue to deliver the high quality services that academic libraries around the world require,” said Andrew Hutchings, Group CEO of Blackwell, in a press release. Blackwell is a privately owned family business.

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