Edwards Brothers and Malloy Merge to Form Nation's Sixth Largest Book Maker

The focus of the new company will be on pursuing growth opportunities. To that end their current sales and customer services teams will remain largely intact. Both Upton and Edwards noted that they have relatively few common customers, which they believe will lead to new business as their respective customers become familiar with the capabilities of the other company.

Both Edwards Brothers and Malloy have invested heavily in recent years in digital printing equipment and technologies that help publishers better align their print quantities to demand. Edwards has established what is arguably the most expansive global digital printing platform in the industry, with ten digital printing centers spread across North America and the United Kingdom and the GPS alliance with four other international printing partners. GPS allows customers to place one order and have their books printed and distributed around the world.

For Malloy’s part, their technological and service enhancements have been focused primarily on web-based service tools that allow customers to more easily manage their work at Malloy. Malloy also has a storage and fulfillment operation that serves well over 100 mostly small publishers. Some publishers take advantage of this service to store and fulfill orders for all of their books, while many others use it to serve particular segments of their markets.

For cost-effective printing of longer print runs, the new firm will also have 15 Timsons web presses, the largest number of any manufacturer in the United States.

Edwards and Upton see the combination of Malloy’s focus on service with Edwards Brothers’ global printing platform as a game changer for publishers of all sizes. Says Edwards, “We are no longer simply a book manufacturer—though we are still good at making books—we are a supply chain manager and an inventory management and delivery company. We can save publishers a lot of expense and time being a trusted supplier with full responsibility for their print orders. We’ll make sure the publisher never misses a sale, never has too many books sitting in a warehouse, and never has to worry about the quantity of their last reprint.”