The U.K. distributor United Independent Distributors and its subsidiary companies Marston Book Services, Orca Book Services, and Eurospan went into administration on July 25. The news comes six days after Joe Matthews, CEO of Marston's U.S. owner Independent Publishers Group, wrote to the distributor's clients to advise them that the company had made "the difficult decision to file a notice of intent to appoint an administrator for Marston Book Services and its parent company United Independent Distributors."

There had been reports of late payments and other problems at Marston for some time. Some publishers left the distributor, while others remained, with their stock still at the warehouse and payments outstanding. Marston clients listed on its website include Anness, Biteback, Rizzoli, Saqi, Trolley Books, and Verso.

The administration filing comes nearly three-years after Matthews bought the company in an attempt to significantly broadening IPG's distribution business by becoming a major player in the U.K. market. When IPG acquired UID in October 2021, the company was the U.K.'s second largest book distributor, but faced financial and operational challenges.

IPG invested heavily in restructuring UID, but Matthews acknowledged to PW in an interview in February that turning around the company was taking longer than he had expected. Matthews had hoped that a new plan, in which U.S. publishers would use UID as a way to meet Amazon's requirement to source books closer to European points of sale, would help to revive the company. But while there were some encouraging signs, it wasn't enough to stop the slide.

David Taylor, senior VP of Ingram Content Group UK, which is the U.K.'s largest distributor, said that the company is ready to assist publishers where it can.

"Our mix of wholesale, distribution and print-on-demand services gives publishers several options to keep their books in the market," Taylor said in a statement. "We're already talking with a number of clients about our full-service distribution service via Ingram Publisher Services UK, as well as offering to help publishers get their titles into our print-on-demand model to minimize any loss of sales. We'd encourage any publisher affected by this unfortunate situation to get in touch and we'll do what we can to help."