Content area
On paper, the merger began last May, when Pearson PLC, owner of the Addison Wesley Longman educational publishing group and imprints such as Scott Foresman, announced its acquisition of Viacom's Simon & Schuster education division, which includes textbook giant Prentice Hall, Allyn & Bacon, and Modern Curriculum Press. Pearson's plan was to consolidate its holdings into a new global unit, expected to be the largest educational publishing operation in the world. As part of the deal, Pearson was to purchase Simon & Schuster's professional, technical, and reference (PTR) lines and then immediately resell them, for $1-billion (U.S.), to a Texas-based investment firm, Hicks Muse Tate & Furst. In 1997, the PTR divisions generated approximately $1.9-billion (U.S.) in sales, and earnings of $246-million. Almost half of the revenues come from the computer publishing operations of Macmillan U.S. Addison Wesley Longman, by contrast, had 1997 sales of $924-million (U.S.), with earnings of $116-million.
Now, with these divisions under one corporate roof internationally, senior managers at Addison Wesley Longman Canada and Prentice Hall Canada will be reviewing overlaps between their own domestic education programs. As far as the organizations themselves are concerned, attrition is all but inevitable as the parent company seeks to find savings by combining the two firms. On the school and college side, the merged firm will have about 40% market share, says Gage Educational president Chris Besse, who heads the school subcommittee of the Association of Canadian Publishers. Prentice Hall and Addison Wesley Longman dominate the French-as-a-second language and elementary math markets, while Prentice Hall's strong language arts programs complement the Addison Wesley Longman roster, which didn't do much publishing in that area. On the trade side, less consolidation will be required because Addison Wesley Longman last year disbanded its trade publishing program.