Wholesale Change: Koen and Levy Team Up
Bob Koen is back in business--with a major partner.
Levy Home Entertainment, the Chas. Levy Co. subsidiary that supplies books to such mass merchandisers as Target, Wal-Mart and Kmart, among others, is teaming up with Koen, former head of Koen Book Distributors, which declared bankruptcy and closed this summer, to create a new organization called Koen-Levy Book Distributors.
The new company aims to service the former Koen's many independent bookstore accounts, primarily in the Northeast and along the Atlantic Coast but also as far south as Florida and as far west as Chicago.
At the same time, Koen-Levy will service some of Levy's customers. "Levy is very good at supplying a limited number of high velocity titles (by book standards) of about 8,000 in any given month," Levy president and CEO Howard Reese explained to Shelf Awareness in an e-mail. But Koen-Levy, with its "greater depth of selection," can provide "community-specific titles" that most of Levy's larger customers want and Levy has difficulty supplying. In addition, Reese indicated that Levy can't meet all the needs of some specialty retailers, an area in which Koen-Levy will be able to help.
Bob Koen, who will be general manager and v-p of Koen-Levy, put it this way to Shelf Awareness: "Besides getting back our old customer base, we'll be able to get business from the Levy side of it, which will help us keep going and be profitable."
This marks the first time that Levy will sell to traditional independent booksellers. If the approach is successful, Levy may "have [Koen-Levy] open similar operations in other parts of the country," Reese indicated.
Koen-Levy headquarters will be in the old Koen offices and warehouse in Moorestown, N.J. Levy has bought some physical assets of the old Koen company but did not buy the receivables or assume its liabilities. Baker & Taylor bought the book inventory and is nearly finished removing it. "We have to reconnect the phone, but we're mostly set to go here," Koen said. "It's almost a turnkey operation."
Starting today, the company's sales force will begin calling accounts. Buyers have been putting orders together for three weeks. Full operations will begin when Baker & Taylor is finished, which should be early this week. The new company plans to be fully in stock and shipping to customers by mid-November.
So far, Koen-Levy has brought back some key employees and is making commitments for now to about 20-30 people, according to Koen. Once the operation is fully running, he wants to add more people from the old company, which earlier this year numbered about 150.
Among the people already back or who have signed on to do so:
Jim DiMiero is head of sales and marketing. Walter Fox will be head of operations. Chuck Lehman, Koen's MIS director, will have similar responsibilities and wants to be called "the IT guy," according to Koen. Sheila Kowalsky will be in charge of purchasing. Keith McCabe, one of the old buyers, is expected to return, and Koen is "negotiating" to bring back other buyers. Barbara Baltimore will return as human resources manager.
Koen has talked to some customers and has gotten "a very good response," he said with obvious happiness. He's also talked with some publishers and has been "thrilled" by their reactions. "I've called credit people, who were all gracious and very nice to me."
Koen added that he has met with Levy staff and was "very impressed with their buyers. They have a lot of ideas, and I think I can get ideas from them to service independents better and they can get help from us doing deep backlist bookselling. It could be really good synergy."
Levy Home Entertainment, the Chas. Levy Co. subsidiary that supplies books to such mass merchandisers as Target, Wal-Mart and Kmart, among others, is teaming up with Koen, former head of Koen Book Distributors, which declared bankruptcy and closed this summer, to create a new organization called Koen-Levy Book Distributors.
The new company aims to service the former Koen's many independent bookstore accounts, primarily in the Northeast and along the Atlantic Coast but also as far south as Florida and as far west as Chicago.
At the same time, Koen-Levy will service some of Levy's customers. "Levy is very good at supplying a limited number of high velocity titles (by book standards) of about 8,000 in any given month," Levy president and CEO Howard Reese explained to Shelf Awareness in an e-mail. But Koen-Levy, with its "greater depth of selection," can provide "community-specific titles" that most of Levy's larger customers want and Levy has difficulty supplying. In addition, Reese indicated that Levy can't meet all the needs of some specialty retailers, an area in which Koen-Levy will be able to help.
Bob Koen, who will be general manager and v-p of Koen-Levy, put it this way to Shelf Awareness: "Besides getting back our old customer base, we'll be able to get business from the Levy side of it, which will help us keep going and be profitable."
This marks the first time that Levy will sell to traditional independent booksellers. If the approach is successful, Levy may "have [Koen-Levy] open similar operations in other parts of the country," Reese indicated.
Koen-Levy headquarters will be in the old Koen offices and warehouse in Moorestown, N.J. Levy has bought some physical assets of the old Koen company but did not buy the receivables or assume its liabilities. Baker & Taylor bought the book inventory and is nearly finished removing it. "We have to reconnect the phone, but we're mostly set to go here," Koen said. "It's almost a turnkey operation."
Starting today, the company's sales force will begin calling accounts. Buyers have been putting orders together for three weeks. Full operations will begin when Baker & Taylor is finished, which should be early this week. The new company plans to be fully in stock and shipping to customers by mid-November.
So far, Koen-Levy has brought back some key employees and is making commitments for now to about 20-30 people, according to Koen. Once the operation is fully running, he wants to add more people from the old company, which earlier this year numbered about 150.
Among the people already back or who have signed on to do so:
Jim DiMiero is head of sales and marketing. Walter Fox will be head of operations. Chuck Lehman, Koen's MIS director, will have similar responsibilities and wants to be called "the IT guy," according to Koen. Sheila Kowalsky will be in charge of purchasing. Keith McCabe, one of the old buyers, is expected to return, and Koen is "negotiating" to bring back other buyers. Barbara Baltimore will return as human resources manager.
Koen has talked to some customers and has gotten "a very good response," he said with obvious happiness. He's also talked with some publishers and has been "thrilled" by their reactions. "I've called credit people, who were all gracious and very nice to me."
Koen added that he has met with Levy staff and was "very impressed with their buyers. They have a lot of ideas, and I think I can get ideas from them to service independents better and they can get help from us doing deep backlist bookselling. It could be really good synergy."
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