Perseus Books Group and Hachette Book Group announce Major Transaction – Perseus to Sell Publishing Business to Hachette

The Perseus Books Group and Hachette Book Group announced today that they have entered into a binding commitment to sell Perseus’s publishing business to Hachette. The transaction is expected to close after regulatory approval is received.

Michael Pietsch, Hachette Book Group CEO, said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Perseus staff and authors to Hachette, and are confident that it will be both an excellent complement to our publishing program and a great fit for the Perseus team. Perseus has created vital and original programs across their imprints, and they are widely respected by authors, agents, booksellers, and the media. Their broad editorial vision and skill at reaching readers are impressive, and the opportunity to bring HBG’s proven sales and marketing skills to these books is exciting. This acquisition is a realization of Hachette’s continuing plans to grow and to expand our non-fiction and backlist publishing programs. It is especially gratifying to have this new opportunity to join together with Perseus, after coming so close to acquiring the company eighteen months ago.”

“I thank my colleagues at Perseus whose tenacity and talent enabled our company to succeed, grow and innovate,” said David Steinberger, President and CEO of the Perseus Books Group. “We take very seriously our responsibility to our people, our authors, our books, and our many clients and partners, as well as to our investors. So it is gratifying that Hachette, a company that we all admire, will be building on what we have accomplished.”

“Perseus Books is a highly successful company that attracted interest from a number of parties. We are pleased to announce the transaction with Hachette which is a leader in the publishing industry,” said Quinn Morgan, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Centre Lane Partners LLC, the private equity owner of Perseus Books. We also would like to thank David and his team for all the hard work in achieving a successful outcome for all parties involved.”

Hachette Book Group will make Perseus Books a major new publishing division of the company, under the continued leadership of longstanding Perseus Executive Susan Weinberg, who will join HBG’s Executive Management Board as Senior Vice President and Publisher of Perseus Books. Perseus comprises nine imprints: Avalon Travel, Basic Books, Basic Civitas, Da Capo Press, Da Capo Lifelong Books, PublicAffairs, Running Press, Seal Press, and Westview Press, plus partnerships with The Economist, The Nation Institute, Participant Media, and The Weinstein Company. Perseus, one of the largest general trade publishers in the US, is well known for its strength across a wide range of serious and popular non-fiction categories – including history, science, religion, economics, biography, social criticism, music, popular culture, travel, health, parenting, and self-help. Perseus brings out approximately 500 new titles per year and has a deep, diverse backlist of more than 6,000 books, reaching back 60 years. Their imprints have produced many bestsellers and award winners, including the Pulitzer Prize winners A Problem from Hell by Samantha Power and Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, the #1 New York Times bestsellers Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger and Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, Banker to the Poor by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, Mighty Be Our Powers by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Leymah Gbowee, The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Nobel Prize recipient Richard Feynman, and the leading travel guide series by Rick Steves.

“We are pleased we could assist such a distinctive and successful company as Perseus Books to reach such a positive result,” said Gregory Miller, Managing Director and Head of Media for Greenhill & Co., Inc., which had been retained by Perseus Books to advise on the sale process for both the publishing and the services businesses.

Perseus Books is also the owner of the publishing industry’s leading client services business which provides digital and physical marketing and distribution services to 600 independent publishers. Perseus is currently in discussions to sell this business as well.