Lakeside Book Company Buys Educational Printer Bradford & Bigelow

Lakeside Book Company, which calls itself the largest book printing, binding and distribution company in North America, has bought Bradford & Bigelow. Lakeside announced the deal on November 2 from Warrenville. No price was disclosed.

Bradford & Bigelow, known as B&B, prints books for K-12 schools, higher education and trade publishers. It will run as a division of Lakeside. Its manufacturing and fulfillment sites in Newburyport, Massachusetts and Newton, New Hampshire will keep operating with their current teams, under Imanol Cortazar as vice president and general manager of B&B.

What B&B does

The company describes itself as a supply chain partner for 8.5x11 books such as workbooks, teacher's editions and classroom materials, with perfect, saddle-stitched, coil and case bindings. On its own site, B&B says it runs Manroland and Timson offset presses alongside a digital book factory, prints anything from 100 to more than 100,000 copies, and offers warehousing and distribution as well. It serves K-12, homeschooling, faith-based, higher education and trade publishers.

Lakeside says B&B customers will now be able to print, store and sell through one partner across North America. Through Lakeside's PAKSmart offering they also get international manufacturing, custom packaging and kitting.

What the companies said

"B&B excels at delivering exceptional printed educational materials and we intend to build upon their nearly eight decades of investment in technology, sustainability, and customer-focused workflows to serve new customers in education and other markets," said Dave McCree, Lakeside's chief executive. He added: "It's such a great time to be a book printer."

John Galligan, B&B's outgoing chief executive, said Lakeside's "demonstrated leadership and stability in the industry will give our publishers immediate access to a wider range of innovative, integrated supply chain options at every stage of their title's lifecycle."

Lakeside keeps growing

The deal adds to a run of expansion at Lakeside, which traces its printing history back to 1864. It bought Baker & Taylor Publishing Services, the distribution arm of the former library wholesaler Baker & Taylor, and now calls it Lakeside Book Distribution internally, according to a Lakeside news page on the reorganization of that business. It also owns Dover Publications. In September it added four publishers as sales and distribution clients, among them Académie du Vin Library and the Quebec publisher Les Editions Goelette.

For publishers, the deal means one less independent name among North American book printers. Lakeside says the purchase shows its confidence in the future of the book industry. Small and educational publishers who print with B&B should see the same plants and people for now, and Lakeside says they'll gain access to the wider range of services that comes with its platform.