Disticor Magazine Distribution Services is an international distributor of Canadian, American and British mass market and special interest newsstand publications. As a full service national distributor it is both a check-out and mainline service company in Canada, while in the United States Disticor’s clients’ titles are featured on mainline display fixtures.

Disticor’s business is to make its publisher clients’ business grow. By measuring performance through newsstand sales and by the level of service given to each and every publisher, Disticor strives to be a dynamic consulting arm, ready to provide the one-on-one assistance and support needed to build a strong on-going relationship with each publisher client.

History

In 1979 Robert Scott created Disticor as a direct result of his experiences as a Sales Manager with Gordon & Gotch Canada, a subsidiary of Gordon & Gotch UK. Scott had often been approached by Canadian publishers seeking national distribution services, but Gordon & Gotch’s policy limited its distribution to solely British titles. Realizing the need Canadian publishers had, Scott started Disticor with rights to distribute just two titles: Outdoor Canada and the British adult title, Mayfair. Scott was later joined by a sales manager from Ontario’s Windsor News Company, Glenn Morgan. The two concentrated on the Canadian market and on select British magazines.

By 1988, Disticor’s client base had increased from two to approximately seventy-seven titles and was ready for further expansion. It also needed to deepen its management team in order to meet new challenges. In response, John Lafranier joined Disticor as an equity partner in the role of Vice-President, General Manager.

Lafranier’s background in both the magazine and book distribution business made him ideally suited for the role he would play at Disticor. As a youngster he had worked part-time in a wholesale agency, but by the age of forty he had become a well respected publishing executive on both sides of the border.

At the age of ten and with no say in the matter, Lafranier was relegated to the return department at Teck News Agency, a regional wholesale operation in northern Ontario which was then managed by his father. During his mid-teens he was promoted to the tie line picking and packing orders. By the end of high school when he was making retail deliveries and dressing magazine and book displays, Lafranier recognized that the industry that was first thrust upon him was now his passion. So, after completing college in 1966, he joined Dell Publishing as a local book sales representative in Toronto. In 1968 he joined Publishers Distributing Corporation as a traveling representative and in 1970, he became New American Library’s Regional Supervisor for Eastern Canada based out of Montreal. Moving back to Toronto in 1976, Lafranier was named National Sales Manager of NAL, and in 1977 he was promoted to Vice-President, General Manager for New American Library of Canada. During the next decade, Lafranier ran the Canadian arm of the American book publisher (now part of Penguin Group, USA). As a member of the Board of Directors of NAL, he fine tuned his knowledge of both the American and Canadian markets.

When Lafranier joined Disticor in 1988, he returned to his roots in the magazine industry. He accelerated the company’s growth in the United States and in 1991 he seized the opportunity to purchase all the shares of Microvite Investments Ltd., the holding company for Disticor. Lafranier, his brother Mark and a private partner, Disha Inc, purchased all the shares. The company thereafter became known as Disticor Magazine Distribution Services, Inc.

Mark Lafranier had also begun his career as a boy working for his father in the returns department at Teck News Agency. After graduating from university with a degree in Business Administration and outstanding credentials as a certified accountant, Mark Lafranier quickly rose to the distinguished position of Director with The Hay Group, an international management consulting firm. He joined his brother in the purchase of Disticor in 1991. Mark’s strength in financial and logistical systems and John’s nearly twenty-five years of experience in the industry provided Disticor with the leadership necessary to move the company forward.

Upon purchasing Disticor, the Lafranier brothers fostered a different corporate culture, one that resulted immediately in a significant growth in sales. In 2000, John and Mark Lafranier purchased the remaining shares owned by Disha Inc. and became the sole owners of the company.

Today Disticor is the largest Canadian national distributor of third party newsstand publications in Canada. In recent years the company’s US business has increased substantially. US sales now account for 70% of its overall volume.

With a history of attaining its goals, exceeding its clients’ expectations, and committing itself to the innovative use of technology, Disticor continues to strengthen its competitive advantages while maintaining its corporate vision. Seeking to better service publisher clients through the knowledge and guidance of a highly qualified and experienced management team, Disticor executives are proud of their collective experience of over 150 years in the newsstand distribution industry.

The core management team’s efforts and successes led to Disticor’s identification as one of the top 50 Best Managed Private Companies by The Financial Post and Arthur Andersen in 1996.

A corporate philosophy of hard work and integrity coupled with its devotion to service, technology and growth, has also garnered acclaim for the company. In the late 1990’s Ernst & Young nominated Disticor for the Canadian Information Productivity Award, the Information Innovator of the Year, and two Global Traders Awards, both in the market expansion category. The Trader awards were for exporting products as well as for exporting services.

But Disticor has never been content to rest on its laurels or award nominations. In 2001 Disticor entered into a services agreement with Rider Circulation Services for billing and data processing services. Always searching for new opportunities for its clients, Disticor purchased Doormouse Distribution Services in 2000. This acquisition began its direct to retail business, and in 2003 Disticor added the purchase of Marginal Books, a distributor of alternative and independent press to the Canadian bookstore trade. In 2004 the company accumulated all the shares of Gordon and Gotch Periodicals Inc., both a national distributor to the Canadian wholesale trade, and a direct to retail distributor. Today the combined companies of Doormouse, Gotch Periodicals and Marginal operate as Disticor Direct Retail Services, Canada’s largest direct to retail distributor serving over 1,500 retailers with more than 2,300 titles. Its account base consists of prime magazine retailers across Canada including bookstores, newsstands, and exclusive specialty outlets geared towards niche and imported magazines.

In 2004 Disticor bought the assets of Mastermedia, a Canadian national distributor of both U.S. and Canadian magazines. Complimenting this purchase was the 2005 acquisition of an American company, Prestige Periodicals, a New York based national distributor of magazines. These entities, along with the wholesale distribution arm of Gotch Periodicals, were rolled into Disticor Magazine Distribution Services.

As a full service national distributor, Disticor specializes in marketing both mass market and niche publications to North American—and if requested, international--newsstands. Its publications originate not only in the USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom, but in France, Italy, Germany, and Australia as well.

Disticor's mission is “to retain and enhance its market prominence by building long term relationships through service excellence.”

For more information on Disticor Magazine Distribution Services or Disticor Direct Retail Services please contact Stan Synowicki at 905 619 6565, (stans@disticor.com.) or visit our website at www.disticor.com.