Mare Nostrum Group Acquires Eurospan

Mare Nostrum Group (MNG) is pleased to announce that it has acquired the leading academic and professional distribution, sales, and marketing business of Eurospan. Mare Nostrum Group’s offer to acquire the company was accepted on Monday 29th July, before the acquisition was formally completed on Friday 16th August.

Eurospan has a strong reputation within the publishing industry and has provided its services to around 200 academic, professional, scientific, and medical publishers over the past 60 years.

The acquisition of the Eurospan business and assets comes after the publishing group including United Independent Distributors Limited, Marston Book Services Limited, Eurospan Limited, and Orca Book Services Limited was put into Administration on 24th July 2024. Alex Cadwallader and Dane O’Hara of Leonard Curtis were appointed as Joint Administrators.

Mare Nostrum Group’s distribution partner, Wiley, will integrate the Eurospan publisher client inventory into their facility in Bognor Regis, from where Eurospan client publishers will be distributed. Wiley’s preferred print partner, CPI, has digital print machinery located within the Wiley facility and will offer a fully integrated zero inventory POD option to Mare Nostrum Group clients.

This acquisition will bring significant growth in both turnover and staff numbers for Mare Nostrum Group, enabling the company to further improve its sales and marketing service whilst leveraging synergies within the two organizations.

David Pickering, Managing Director of Mare Nostrum Group, comments:

We are delighted to be able to offer the Eurospan team and their publisher clients a home at Mare Nostrum Group. In the past, we have worked with and admired Eurospan, and we were saddened to see its gradual demise and the significant problems that this situation created for Eurospan publisher clients. With this in mind, we intend to make the transition for Eurospan publishers as smooth and as efficient as possible. With the assistance of our fulfilment partner Wiley, and the expertise and experience of the combined Mare Nostrum Eurospan team, we aim to build on and further improve Mare Nostrum Group’s ability to provide the strongest possible sales and marketing service to academic and professional publishers in international markets.

Cary Hamill, Vice President of Global Supply Chain at Wiley, comments:

Wiley is delighted to be entering into a much broader relationship with Mare Nostrum Group through their acquisition of the Eurospan business and is very much looking forward to working with the Eurospan team as we integrate the business into Wiley’s European Distribution Centre located in Bognor Regis. We are actively executing an accelerated onboarding plan to help minimize the disruption to both clients of Eurospan and their customers. With the addition of the Eurospan publishers into the Mare Nostrum Group, Wiley’s distribution business will now be providing services for 28 clients, representing over 200 publishers across a range of more than 400,000 active titles.

Dane O’Hara, Director at Leonard Curtis, comments:

We are pleased to have found a home for the Eurospan business and, crucially, their staff. We have worked hard with the team at MNG to conclude this transaction in challenging conditions and believe this is a positive outcome for all stakeholders in the circumstances.

 

About Mare Nostrum Group
The Mare Nostrum Group (MNG) is an experienced publishing company providing a comprehensive range of services, including print and digital distribution, sales, marketing, data management, recruitment, and consultancy services to professional and academic publishers. Our team of over 30 employees provides a fully collaborative offering that complements and extends the work of our client publishers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. With a history of providing sales growth, marketing excellence, and business solutions for new and existing clients, our reputation has been built on the quality of our work and the results achieved.

About Eurospan
Established in the 1960s, Eurospan holds over 60 years of experience providing bespoke sales, marketing, and distribution services to publishers in territories across the world. Eurospan’s more than 20 employees work with around 200 publishers, specializing in academic, professional, scientific, and medical publishing.

About Leonard Curtis
Leonard Curtis is a multi-disciplinary professional services group. From its 28 regional offices across the UK and offshore locations, it employs over 290 people, specializing in restructuring & insolvency, funding, and legal services for SMEs, larger corporates, and their advisers.