The Book Closes on HMH Trade
With HCâs purchase of the division complete, integration begins
By Jim Milliot
|
May 14, 2021
After a less-than-two-month review by regulatory authorities, HarperCollins’s purchase of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trade division was completed May 10. HC parent company News Corp had announced March 29 that it reached an agreement with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to buy the division for $349 million in cash.
In comments to
PW when the deal was announced, HC CEO Brian Murray said HMH trade would benefit from being part of a trade publisher rather than being a division of a learning technology company, and that he was anxious to see how HC would benefit from HMH’s ties to the film, TV, and streaming worlds. He reiterated those thoughts in a memo sent to HC employees announcing the completion of the purchase. “Like HarperCollins, HMH has a long and storied history of publishing award-winning authors,” the memo read. “There are many outstanding titles—from children’s classics to contemporary fiction and lifestyle works—that can benefit from our combined experience and global reach. I am especially pleased to be uniting the J.R.R. Tolkien publishing program under one roof and eager to see how we can work together to strengthen our IP and production projects.”