Edwards Brothers, Inc. and Malloy Incorporated, two leading book manufacturers, announced that they would merge effective February 6, 2012, forming a new company called Edwards Brothers Malloy.

The new company will have combined sales of $115 million and will be the sixth largest book manufacturing firm in the United States, offering publishers a global distributed print program and fulfillment services that combine to form a single print supply chain solution.

Edwards Brothers Malloy will have three offset facilities—Edwards Brothers’ plants in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Lillington, North Carolina and Malloy’s operation in Ann Arbor—along with eleven digital print plants in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. With Edwards Brothers’ gps Global Print SolutionsTM distributed print partnership, publishers will be able to print and distribute books with one order, one file, and one invoice around the world.

John Edwards, President and CEO of Edwards Brothers, says the merger brings two strong family-owned businesses together with over 170 years of book making experience between them. “I’ve known the Uptons my whole life, and I’ve always respected Malloy as a competitor. They have a great reputation for service and a very strong financial foundation. I’ve been amazed as we put this merger together how similar our companies are. We share a strong commitment to our employees, our customers, and the craft of book making.”

Edwards also noted the fact that Malloy has roots in EB. Jim Malloy, who founded Malloy in 1960, was production manager at EB in the 1940s. As Edwards puts it, “In a sense, we’re being reunited.”

Edwards will be the CEO of Edwards Brothers Malloy. Bill Upton, President of Malloy, will become the Vice President of Operations for the new unified company, and Joe Upton, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Malloy will take over that same role with Edwards Brothers Malloy.

Bill Upton believes the merger will result in additional business and jobs flowing into the current Malloy facility and is excited about the expanded services the new company will be able to offer to Malloy’s current customers: “We can’t wait to introduce the Edwards Brothers global digital printing platform to our customers. Our customers can now turn to us for print-on-demand (POD) service and use gps Global Print SolutionsTM to print closer to their international customers. Edwards Brothers Malloy combines two book manufacturers into one print supply chain solution.”

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.”

Edwards Brothers Malloy will have over 950 employees and will maintain its headquarters in Ann Arbor with eight sales offices located across the United States.

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