Castle Harlan to Buy Baker & Taylor

-- Publishers Weekly, 5/11/2006

A little less than three years after acquring Baker & Taylor for $255 million, the private equity firm Willis Stein has agreed to sell the nation’s second largest book wholesaler to another equity group, Castle Harlan, for $455 million. The deal, set to close later this year, is unlikely to result in any dramatic changes at the company. Richard Willis, who has led B&T over the last several years, will remain president and CEO, and the rest of his senior management team is also expected to remain in place. B&T has been rumored to be for sale for months, though executives had repeatedly denied they were shopping the company.

Since it acquired B&T in summer of 2003, Willis Stein has made a number of niche purchases to augment B&T’s operations. Its most recent purchase was of the U.K. company Delta International Book Wholesalers. Previously, B&T bought the Spanish-language distributor Libros Sin Fronteras and J.A. Majors, a distributor of STM materials.

Castle Harlan has a variety of holdings, though nothing in the distribution or publishing fields.