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Quarto buys in the US

28.08.07

Quarto, the London-based and listed international book publisher, has bought MBI Publishing Company, a publisher and distributor of special interest titles, based in Minneapolis, US.

MBI publishes books for transport enthusiasts, and is a US distributor for a number of overseas, predominantly UK-based, publishers of specialist transport titles; it also publishes a range of military history and militaria titles, under the Zenith imprint, and a more general list of regional, outdoor activity, sport, and special interest titles under the Voyageur Press imprint.

MBI will become part of the Quayside Group, and be managed by its CEO, Ken Fund.

Laurence Orbach, Quarto's chairman and chief executive, said: "MBI is a significant acquisition, in line with our strategy of building strength in publishing books for audiences of enthusiasts and professionals, and leveraging our back office infrastructure to achieve improvements in overall financial performance. It fits excellently with our various Quayside imprints and we look forward to building upon the strength of the enlarged group. We expect to move rapidly to integrate MBI's back office activities with Quayside, a core component of Quarto's publishing segment, which is located in Minneapolis."

Quarto has made a number of attempted acquisitions recently: its interim results (also published today) showed that the group had recovered £0.4m from the break up fee from a previous aborted acquisition.

 

US Quarto Laurence Orbach

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