Alliance Entertainment Holding Corporation has announced that it has been selected as the winning bidder to acquire substantially all of the assets of Diamond Comic Distributors after Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Alliance Entertainment is a global distributor and wholesaler specializing in music, movies, video games, electronics, arcades, and collectables. The only pop culture media they didn’t distribute was comics. Alliance (Nasdaq: AENT) made the announcement earlier today that they are acquiring all of Diamond’s assets. If we don’t mention it here, don’t worry, for nothing will be left behind.

The proposed acquisition, subject to Bankruptcy Court approval, includes Diamond Comic Distributors (U.S.), Alliance Game Distributors (apparently not originally related), Diamond Select Toys & Collectibles, and Collectible Grading Authority. The Diamond Comic Distributors umbrella also includes things like Free Comic Book Day, and Gemstone Publishing, home of the Overstreet Price Guide. There were apparently multiple competitive bids, and that Alliance paid a great deal more than anyone expected they would.

Alliance Entertainment Holding Corporation (Nasdaq: AENT), a global distributor and wholesaler specializing in music, movies, video games, electronics, arcades, and collectibles, today announced that it has been selected as the winning bidder to acquire substantially all of the assets of Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., currently being sold through a court-supervised bankruptcy process. The proposed acquisition, which is subject to Bankruptcy Court approval, includes Diamond Comic Distributors (U.S.), Alliance Game Distributors, Diamond Select Toys & Collectibles, and Collectible Grading Authority, which collectively represent a 42-year-old enterprise recognized as a category-defining leader in comic books, tabletop games, pop-culture merchandise, and collectible grading.

From Aliance’s press release:

“This is a transformative opportunity to expand our leadership in the world of gaming and physical collectibles and deepen our reach into thriving fan-driven categories,” said Jeff Walker, CEO of Alliance Entertainment. “With their legacy of exclusive titles, deep retail relationships, and strong presence in comics, tabletop games, and collectible merchandise, these businesses are highly complementary to our existing distribution and fulfillment model. We see powerful cross-selling potential between our product lines and customer bases, expanding the reach of our expanded product portfolio across both mass retail and specialty channels.”

“We’re incredibly honored to welcome the talented teams from Diamond Comic Distributors, Alliance Game Distributors, and Collectible Grading Authority to the Alliance Entertainment family,” said Bruce Ogilvie, Executive Chairman of Alliance Entertainment. “These are passionate professionals who have built deep relationships across the fandom, hobby, and collectibles communities. We look forward to supporting them, learning from them, and investing in their success. To the suppliers, creators, and publishing partners that make this ecosystem so dynamic, we’re excited to collaborate and build lasting value together. And to the customers who rely on these brands every day, we remain committed to delivering the excellent service and reliability you expect, and taking it even further.”

The TL;DR version of that is that they’re happy to be engulfing and devouring everything that Diamond Select was, and that they aren’t planning on taking any of it apart just yet (though of course that might still happen if they find some redundant operations).

The acquired businesses bring a combination of scale, cultural cachet, and commercial reach. Together, Diamond Comic Distributors (U.S.), Alliance Game Distributors, and Collectible Grading Authority support over 5,000 retail storefronts, ranging from independent comic and game stores to specialty retailers, mass-market chains, and leading e-commerce platforms.

Alliance is pretty chuffed over the whole idea, because it will give them deeper access to a highly engaged community of retailers and fans who form the backbone of the $50+ billion global market for tabletop games, collectibles, comics, and pop culture merchandise, and in their press release they made mention of a few of the top ones, suggesting that they really do understand what they’re doing with fandom merchandising, and want to be a bigger part of it. The deal is going to expand their reach in the fandom marketplace considerably, and they are now poised to effectively become the Disney of Fandom Merch—and I say this because it’s a well known fact that for the past forty or fifty years, Disney has been buying up content and studios left and right, including Marvel Comics itself, and made it so that one in every three or four major productions in Hollywood is connected to Disney money in some way.

They’ll be picking up a big chunk of it with Alliance Game Distributors, one of the subsidiaries of Diamond Comics Distributors that comes with the package they just bought. Alliance is a category leader in the fast-growing tabletop games sector, offering over 15,000 unique SKUs to 3,000+ independent hobby retailers across North America. It partners with over 150 game publishers, delivering industry staples and breakout hits in card games, board games, role-playing games (RPGs), and miniatures.

Diamond Comic Distributors, of course, is the industry’s long-standing distribution backbone for comic books, graphic novels, action figures, and licensed collectibles. With over 40 years of history, it remains the go-to fulfillment engine for 2,500+ comic shops and thousands of additional retailers through its flagship PREVIEWS^® catalog, which reaches 30,000+ readers each month.

Collectible Grading Authority brings a high-value service layer to Alliance’s offering, having authenticated and graded over 500,000 collectibles for dealers, collectors, and auction firms in more than 50 countries.

The crazy thing about all this is that Alliance Entertainment is putting the entire purchase on a credit card. Well, not exactly that, but the high rolling corporate equivalent of it. They’re tacking the purchase onto its existing $120 million Revolving Credit Facility, which it expects to increase to $160 million. The amended facility will be secured by a pledge of the acquired assets, alongside the Company’s existing collateral.

The transaction and credit facility amendment are expected to close in April 2025, subject to final bankruptcy court approval and customary closing conditions, but there is likely not going to be anything like a monopoly challenge to stand in their way, considering that Alliance did not start in the core business of comics distribution, and thanks to Marvel and DC having clawed back their own distribution operations from Diamond Comics Distribution back in 2020, had Diamond lost their monopoly anyway, so Alliance wouldn’t be purchasing one from them.