MVB, a subsidiary of the Börsenverein, the German book industry association, has purchased Pubnet and PubEasy from NPD Group, which acquired the online ordering systems when it bought Nielsen's U.S. marketing information and research services in January, according to Publishing Perspectives. (The main part of NPD's purchase was BookScan.)
MVB has run Germany's Verzeichnis Liefbarer Bücher--the country's books in print database--for 45 years and recently launched Metabooks Brasil.
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| Ted Hill | |
Ted Hill, head of THA Consulting, is heading the newly formed MVB US, which consists of Pubnet and PubEasy. The technology used by the two ordering services will be used until the end of 2018, after which it will be replaced by MVB's platform.
Ronald Schild, managing director of MVB (which stands for Marketing und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels, or Marketing and Publishing Service of the Book Trade), said that the acquisition "gives MVB a leading position among service providers in two of the world's largest book markets, the U.S. and Germany. Both offer a high degree of recognition as well as a very good market penetration.
"The technical and substantive proximity to our existing IBU business makes the takeover a perfect acquisition within our development strategy, with which we want to grow beyond the borders of the German-speaking region.
"The synergies in the functionality of the three ordering systems provide us with the opportunity to merge the technical infrastructure so as to serve the current and additional markets with a uniform platform strategy."
Pubnet has 250 active publishers and suppliers and 1,600 active retailers. The company made 16.7 million business transactions in 2016.
PubEasy has 11 U.S. and three Canadian suppliers, and 4,100 dealers operating in 100 countries and made 10.2 million transactions last year.