Japan's ICG-Muse Buys Tuttle Shokai
Sally Taylor -- Publishers Weekly, 1/18/1999
The last year of the old millennium "marks a revolution in book distribution in Japan," according to Hiroshi Kagawa, the new president of Tuttle Shokai. At the end of 1998, Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Co. in Japan relinquished control of the company, which has been one of the major suppliers of English-language trade books to Japan since World War II.Owned jointly by Tuttle Corporation and Periplus Editions since 1996, Tuttle Shokai will now be run by Kagawa, with Junji Kiyota as chairman. They are the principals of ICG-Muse, which is a young but competitive distributor.
"ICG-Muse will contribute substantial new capital to the business while bringing new products and a new business strategy to the company," reported Kagawa. Neither Eric y, managing director of Periplus Editions nor Nicholas Ingleton, president of Tuttle Corporation, will have an active management role, though both companies will retain a minority interest in Tuttle Shokai.
Both Tuttle Shokai and its major competitor, Yohan, have been struggling with Japan's stagnant economy and various direct importers in recent years, including Tower Books &Records, Amazon.com and ICG-Muse.
ICG-Muse began direct importing and distribution services just last year, and has specialized so far in paperback imports from the U.S. "We will also be buying books from U.K. publishers," Kagawa promised. "There will be new levels of service and better prices to our customers in Japan."
The other Tuttle companies in Japan, which include the Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Co. Inc., the Tuttle-Mori Agency and the Tuttle Corporation, will be unaffected by this change.
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