MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
December 6 – December 13, 2007 Edition
Houghton Mifflin
Gets Court Okay
to Acquire Harcourt
NEW YORK, NY/12/5/07–HM Riverdeep, the Ireland-based parent company of US educational publisher Houghton Mifflin, received U.S. Justice Department approval last week to acquire Reed Elsevier’s Harcourt US education. The $4 billion deal is expected to culminate by either mid-December or early next year.
In preparing to absorb Harcourt into the fold, Houghton Mifflin has already begun streamlining its publishing units to focus more intensely on the K-12 trade and reference business.
In a key move this week, Houghton Mifflin sold its college division for $750 million to Cengage Learning (formerly Thomson Learning). The deal, which must still be approved by the government, is expected to close in the first half of 2008.
With the addition of HM’s college division, Cengage will become the second largest college publisher behind the $1.58 billion Pearson Education. Cengage is the investment firm formed to buy Thomson Learning from the Thomson Corp. earlier this year.
Riverdeep Holdings Limited, with offices in San Francisco, California; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Dublin (Ireland) and Manchester (United Kingdom), is a leading publisher of interactive products focusing on education and personal productivity for the consumer and school markets. Riverdeeps rich portfolio of interactive award-winning products feature such well-known brands as the Destination Success® solution, which includes Destination Math® and Destination Reading®; The Print Shop®; Reader Rabbit® and Kid Pix®.
Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Company is one of the leading educational publishers in the United States, with more than $1 billion in sales. Houghton Mifflin publishes textbooks, instructional technology, assessments and other educational materials for elementary and secondary schools and colleges. The Company also publishes an extensive line of reference works and award-winning fiction and nonfiction for adults and young readers. The company originated in 1832.
