NASHVILLE – John Ingram announced today the formation of a single new company – Ingram Content Group Inc. – in order to provide better print and digital solutions for publishers and retail and institutional customers.

Ingram Content Group will “fully integrate” Ingram’s content companies and make it easier for publishers to work with Ingram within the streamlined organization. It will also bring Ingram’s newest business – Ingram Digital – into the restructured content group that includes Ingram Book Group and Lightning Source Inc., under the leadership of David “Skip” Prichard, President and CEO of Ingram Content Group.

“Almost two years ago, I recruited Skip with the ultimate vision of uniting our content companies,” Mr. Ingram said. “His background in traditional and digital transformations fit perfectly within this vision.”

Mr. Prichard said the realignment announced today will make Ingram’s “integrated suite of services” even more accessible and functional for its channel partners, helping them sell more content to more customers.

Today’s announcement comes on the eve of the book industry’s largest U.S. trade show BookExpo America, which will open in New York on Thursday (May 28).

“When people think of Ingram, they expect a full range of content services – the physical and the digital – and they want to get what they need without having to spend one extra minute remembering which of our businesses provides which service,” Mr. Ingram explained.

Together, Ingram’s content companies provide distribution, print on demand, and digital support services to publishers, libraries and booksellers. For example, Ingram Book Group is the leading wholesaler in the book industry, and Lightning Source Inc. is the leading international provider of demand-driven printing for publishers. Ingram Digital is the leading digital content distributor and supplier of content management, distribution and hosting solutions for publishers, retailers, libraries and institutions worldwide.

“We have been the innovator in distribution, print on demand, and now digital,” Mr. Ingram said. “Both Lightning Source and Ingram Digital grew up separately, and now they are together with our physical distribution business providing seamless service to our customers. Over the past decade, we recognized we were moving to a ‘P+D’ world – print plus digital – and that our customers wanted P+D solutions without having to contact multiple people in our organization. So we’re organizing to make that happen – to provide these solutions better, faster and more effectively than anybody.

“In this evolving marketplace, we’re seeing more and more of our partners feeling the need to look differently at their businesses, and to look critically at how they might be better structured for the future. It’s the investments we’ve made over the past decade in all three of our content service areas that I feel very strongly can help our partners make their businesses stronger and more profitable.”

He noted that Frank Daniels, Chief Commercial Officer of Ingram Digital, will be leaving Ingram in July. Mr. Daniels had agreed to stay on and help transition VitalSource, the market leader in higher education digital textbook technology, into the broader Ingram Digital business following its acquisition in 2006.

"We want to personally thank Frank for helping transition VitalSource into Ingram over the past three years and for helping shape the coordinated suite of Ingram Digital offerings – particularly in our education sector,” Mr. Ingram said.

Mr. Prichard added: “Our customers want to take advantage not only of our distribution capabilities, which are second to none, but also our innovative print on demand and digital services. More and more of our partners in the industry are seeing the value of leveraging Ingram’s investment – our distribution, print on demand, and digital capabilities – for their own needs to help them sell more.”