With operations already established in Mexico and the U.K., Advanced Marketing Services continued its international expansion last week with the acquisition of a 25% interest in Canada's Raincoast Book Distribution. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Raincoast serves as a traditional wholesaler to the book trade, while also serving as the exclusive distributor for 40 publishers. In addition, Raincoast has a well-developed publishing program that recently added the Harry Potter books to its list. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 1999, Raincoast had net sales of $19 million.
AMS president Michael Nicita said he sees possible synergistic opportunities between AMS and Raincoast in wholesaling, distribution and publishing. Now that AMS is a partner with a distributor, Nicitia told PW, it would closely examine whether AMS could establish a distribution arm in the U.S. to compete with such companies as PGW and National Book Network.
Noting that Raincoast carries a relatively small number of titles (15,000“ 20,000 SKUs), Nicita said AMS "can learn a lot about parlaying a small SKU base into being an effective wholesaler to the retail trade." For its part, Nicita said AMS can help Raincoast expand its operations to nontraditional book outlets.
