After Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins’ acquisition of HMH, another publisher’s purchase has come to make the big publishing houses even bigger. Hachette Book Group has signed a $240 million “binding commitment” to acquire Workman Publishing, one of the largest independent presses in the country, Publishers Weekly reports.
BG CEO Michael Pietsch called Workman “a brilliant publisher, the most creative in the industry,” while Workman Publishing’s current CEO, Dan Reynolds, affirmed that the publisher had been looking for a new owner and that they were prioritizing the security of their employees. He also said that they had found that with Hachette. Reynolds also noted that another practical incentive for the purchase was that it costs a good deal of money to invest in the type of publishing Workman does, and with the purchase, they could devote their full attention to developing new products.
With this purchase, Workman, alongside its imprints, Algonquin, Algonquin Young Readers, Artisan, Storey Publishing, and Timber Press, will become Hachette’s eighth publishing group.