MBI, CPi to Move in Consolidation
by Judith Rosen -- Publishers Weekly, 11/19/2007 9:17:00 AM
In its first big move, literally, since acquiring two Twin Cities publishers and distributors—Creative Publishing international (CPi) in 2004 and Motorbooks International (MBI) this August—Quayside Publishing Group is consolidating both in new 30,000 sq. ft. offices in The Wyman Building in downtown Minneapolis. Both MBI and CPi will retain separate warehouses.
“It just makes sense to bring the two offices together,” said Quayside president and CEO Ken Fund. The move, he noted, will give MBI and its publishing imprints, Voyageur Press and Zenith Press, access to CPi’s 10,000 sq. ft. inhouse photo studio and eight-person staff, who currently shoot photographs for all of CPi’s books.
CPi will move on November 26, followed by MBI in January. In total, 105 people will be affected by the move, and although no layoffs are part of the consolidation, CPi and MBI have also lost a dozen staff members through attrition.
Quayside is currently in the process of consolidating its operations in other ways. Fund anticipates that the company will be able to announce changes to its sales team early next year. Sales are now led by Peter Ackroyd, v-p of sales and marketing at the company’s Beverly, Mass., headquarters, and by Mike Hejney, v-p sales and marketing at MBI in Minn. On the business side, MBI’s finance officer John Harvatine was just named CFO of the entire Quayside group.
