Baker & Taylor has sold a part of the company to Ingram, but not the retail trade part that had been the object of a Federal Trade Commission preliminary investigation late last year.
Ingram Entertainment, which distributes DVD and Blu-Ray videos, videogame hardware, software and accessories, mobile accessories, audio music, audiobooks and licensed merchandise, has bought "certain assets" of Baker & Taylor's entertainment division, including "retail customer agreements for the purchase of video and audio music products."
In the general announcement of the sale, Ingram and B&T emphasized that the purchase "does not involve book products or the Baker & Taylor businesses that provide support and services to public libraries, retail booksellers and publishers." And in a letter to bookseller customers, B&T wrote in part, that while the sale "marks a meaningful change to Baker & Taylor's retail entertainment customer operations, it has no impact on our bookselling operations.
"Our commitment to providing booksellers with the best in physical books and audiobooks remains the same. There are no changes to how you work with Baker & Taylor. When it comes to bookselling, our commitment is as strong as when we were founded in 1828."
Last fall, representatives of the FTC interviewed a range of people in the book world, including indie booksellers, publishers and wholesalers, in what several interviewees were told was a look at possible antitrust implications for a purchase of B&T retail operations by Ingram Content Group, which is a separate company from Ingram Entertainment.
David Ingram, chairman of Ingram Entertainment, said that "structural changes in the physical home entertainment marketplace" were behind the deal that had been concluded. "Acquiring these entertainment assets of Baker & Taylor will enhance our financial performance by enabling us to process more units through our existing facilities throughout the country," he said.
Bob Webb, Ingram Entertainment's president and CEO, added: "Baker & Taylor has been a respected competitor and a valued contributor to the home entertainment products distribution business for many years. Ingram Entertainment looks forward to the opportunity to increase our sales of products to video, audio music and online retailers."
B&T president David Cully said, "The sale of our retail entertainment assets to Ingram Entertainment will allow both companies to bring greater value to customers through the strengths of our respective wholesale distribution businesses. For Baker & Taylor, that means delivering the most innovative and efficient content distribution services to our retail, public library and publisher service customers everywhere."
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In the originally published version of this article, we stated that Ingram Entertainment and Ingram Content Group are both part of Ingram Industries. While Ingram Content Group is part of Ingram Industries, Ingram Entertainment is an independent company.