Publishing Mergers & Acquisitions

Over the past 30 years, we have become one of the leading merger, acquisition and divestiture advisors to book publishers.  

We are actively involved in advising publishing and information services clients in a wide range of merger and acquisition transactions in such areas as trade books, juvenile books, database businesses, cellular rights, newsletters, establishment of venture capital funds, and many other areas of publishing, including electronic publishing.  The more than 100 transactions successfully completed over the last 21 years range in value from under $5 million to in excess of $50 million. We have been able to even the playing field for small to mid-size publishers who might otherwise be overmatched when dealing with the resources of larger media companies. 

This special competence provides our clients with advice on how to establish or increase values and provides the buyer or seller with entree to the decision makers in publishing and information businesses domestically and abroad.  We are also able to add value to publishing transactions by bringing into play specialized tax knowledge to maximize the final benefits of a transaction and through the expertise of our intellectual property attorneys, who can give advice on rights that are an essential part of a publishing transaction.  Our strong and long-standing experience enables us to bring these transactions to fruition successfully, speedily and economically. 

Examples of some of our M&A transactions are listed below:

From	To
Monacelli Press	Random House
The Haworth Press	Taylor & Francis Group
Hugh Lauter Levin Associates	Rizzoli International Publications
Allerton Press	Pleiades Publishing
Consortium Book Sales & Dist.	Perseus Books Group
Oceana Publications	Oxford University Press
Lawyers Weekly	Dolan Media Company
Walker Publishing Company	Bloomsbury Publishing
Art Now	LTB Holding (USA
CDC Construction News	Alta Communications
Sea Star Books of North-South Books	Chronicle Books
Berkshire House Publishers	W.W. Norton & Company
Greenhaven Press, Inc. and Lucent Books	Gale Group, division of Thomson Corporation
Petersons Guides	The Thomson Corporation
Hudson Hills Press	Gallery Press
Emanuel Publishing	Aspen Publishers
Summers Press	Aspen Publishers
Presidio Press	Random House
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers	Harcourt General
American Booksellers Association, Inc. Trade Show	Reed Publishing (USA)
Library Database Division of EIC/Intelligence	Reed Publishing (USA)
Lectorum Publications	Scholastic
Jeremy P. Tarcher	Putnam Berkley Group
Shareholder sale of 50% Interest in the Haworth Press	Haworth Press
Howell Book House	MacMillan
Sales of Rights to Unofficial Guide Travel Series from Menasha Ridge Press	MacMillan Publishing, USA.
Price Stern Sloan	Putnam Berkeley Group
South Park Press, Inc.	The Musterlin Group
Schocken Books	Random House
AIP Press	Springer Verlag New York
Sandak	GK Hall, division of MacMillan Company
Alloy Digest	ASM International
Baskerville Communications	Informa Group
Williamson Publishing	Guideposts
Ideals Publications	Rowman & Littlefield
Globe Pequot Press

Selling a business is generally a one-time event and the business often represents a major asset of individual owners. CLL offers those dealing with such a situation an opportunity to meet without any obligation. In this meeting, we review the history of the business, its financial history, the likelihood of a sale, and the tax and estate and family planning aspects of the sale. In our practice we have continued to review and advise clients over many years developing a close informed relationship that is helpful to the process.

We welcome you to call one of our lawyers, all of whom are familiar with mergers and acquisitions of Publishing and Information Services companies, to schedule a complimentary meeting and discussion.

Robert J. Giordanella	rjg@cll.com	(212) 790-9234
Simon Gerson	sxg@cll.com	(212) 790-9206