Distributor Baker & Taylor on the Block via Goldman Sachs:
Baker & Taylor, the books, video and music wholesaler based in Charlotte, N.C., is up for sale, sources have told The Book Standard.
The article goes on to observe:
Possible suitors would likely include other book wholesalers like Ingram and Levy Home Entertainment, as well as Source Interlink…“Revenue growth is not a problem for Baker & Taylor,” says one former suitor who has looked at the company in the past. “The problem is low net profit margins.”
From a purely selfish point of view, I’m pulling for Ingram.
Update: this page is getting a lot of hits today, so I will expound a bit more. I have an interest here because Nimble Books uses services provided by Ingram’s LSI subsidiary. If Ingram owns B&T, our reach into libraries will be quite a bit better.
I don’t really see how Ingram can let anyone else take B&T. It’s a crucial acquisition for them — worth pulling out all the stops and fighting every battle that needs to be bought. With the rapid pace of change in publishing and bookselling, if you are not an indispensable giant, then you are a vulnerable peripheral player.
Update^2: Flipping through my web logs, I noticed that a lot of the queries on “Baker & Taylor” were coming from Richmond, Virginia. It didn’t take long to figure out why. Richmond, Virginia was the locus of a big whistleblower suit accusing B&T of ripping off public libraries, which B&T ultimately settled for $3 million.
Apparently people in Richmond have long memories.
